I am going to highlight a few fun facts about bats, their importance, why they are disappearing and what you can do to help.
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| I found this little guy last summer on the ground. Clearly sick because being on the ground and active during the day is unusual behavior, and animal control came and had to put the little guy down. |
FUN FACTS:
- Bats are the only flying mammals!
- Bats are not rodents, and they are more closely related to primates then they are to rodents.
- Bats are named Chiroptera, which means “hand wing”. If you compare the bones in a bats wing, you’ll find that they are very similar to the bones in our hands!
- The number of bat species worldwide is 1,200! In the state of Colorado there are 17 species of bats, all insect-eating bats.
- Different kinds of bats eat different things, from insects, fruit, nectar, fish, frogs, and blood!
- Insect eating bats eat their body weight in insects each night, that can be anywhere from 2,000 to 6,000 insects for each bat!
- Bats are not blind, and they can see just as well as any other mammal! Most bats use echolocation to find food at night, but they can still see.
- Bats can live from 10 to 20 years old, with a few species living to 30 years old! For mammals of their size this is very long, and they don’t age either!
- A bat doesn’t get blood rushing to its head the way we do when they hang upside all day long. Why not? Because bats are too small for gravity to have an affect on their circulation!
- Vampire bats are the only mammals that feed entirely on blood, and are only found in Latin America. They usually feed on sleeping horses and cattle, and very occasionally feed on people.
Bats are more important than we realize. They act as a natural pest control, eating their body weight in insects each night, and they are pollinators of important plant species like the baobab tree, bananas, peaches and agave.
Fruit eating bats disperse and fertilize seeds from the fruits that they eat, replenishing forests and valuable fruit trees without even trying. This is extremely important as vast expanses of the rainforest are clear-cut, and the fruit bat plays a vital role in replenishing the forest. Seeds from bat droppings can account for up to 95% of a forests new growth!
Even their droppings are valuable as fertilizer and are used worldwide!
Bat Conservation International says that bats are a keystone species. This means that they are essential to the ecosystem that they live in, and without them their ecosystem will fall apart because so many other species depend on them for survival.
The African Baobab tree feeds and supports so many other creatures in the African savannah that it is considered the “African Tree of Life” but the baobab tree would not survive without bats, which the tree depends on almost exclusively for pollination.
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| A Baobab Tree, the African tree of life. This tree depends on the pollination of bats to live. |
RABIES
Lots of folks believe that all bats are rabid, and this is
simply not true. The vast majority of bats are not infected with rabies, and
should you find a bat that looks sick, never handle it. A sick bat will bite.
It is always best to call animal control when you find a bat that looks sick,
and never try to handle it yourself. With common sense, it’s very easy to avoid
getting rabies from a bat.
A BAT’S PLIGHT:
Bats are disappearing and it’s largely our fault. Bats are
the least studied mammals, and there is just not enough information to
determine the conservation status of many bat species. Bats only have one to
two pups each year, which makes recovery from population decline slow at best.
Currently, the International Union for the Conservation of
Nature (IUCN) has 26 bat species listed as Critically Endangered, with 51
species listed as Endangered and a staggering 954 species listed as vulnerable.
The largest cause of bat decline is loss of habitat, from
clear cutting forests to thoughtless cave tourism.
Cave tourism can be damaging in a few ways. If people are
allowed to tour caves where bats are known to roost in the winter, they might
disturb the bats from their hibernation, which causes them to wake up too soon
and they often die of hunger or cold as a result.
Cave tourism can also spread the deadly White Nose Syndrome
(WNS), which doesn’t kill bats in and of itself. It’s a fungus that causes the
bats to itch, and this itch often is so relentless that it causes the bats to
wake up during their hibernation, where they use up their stored fat and will
either starve of freeze to death.
White Nose Syndrome is known to be in 25 states and 5
Canadian providences, and it is new to North America, just discovered in 2006.
In some places mortality rates are as high as 100%. Predictions for the future
of bats is dire, with estimations that the once common little brown bat
population will be reduce to a meager 1% by 2030.
Other threats to bats are wind turbines, not just from
impact from the blades but from the pressure changes near the blades. There are
studies in progress using sound deterrents near wind turbines to keep bats
away, and these may be used in the future if they are found to be
affective.
Bats are also commonly killed simply out of fear. In Latin
America, bats are often killed under the mistaken belief that all bats are
vampire bats. Vampire bats are not at all like what we see in the movies, and
only feed on a small amount of blood on sleeping animals. There are only three
species of vampire bats.
In some places bats are hunted for food, either for local
consumption or for commercial markets and restaurants. This can be a threat to bat populations due to unregulated over-hunting.
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| These are fruit bats that I saw in Tanzania. Thanks to these cute little guys, there are plenty of banana trees! |
HOW YOU CAN HELP:
From planting certain plants that will attract the insects
that bats feed on, to building a bat house or simply supporting bat
conservation with a donation, there are plenty of ways to help!
Evening Primrose
Phlox
Nightflowering/Silene Catchfly
Milkweeds
Goldenrod
Purple coneflower
Four o’clocks
Salvia
Nicotiana
Moonflowers
Aromatic herbs
Butterfly Bush
Here is a link to the Bat Conservation Trust which has a few useful ideas for gardening and links:
http://www.bats.org.uk/pages/encouraging_bats.html
Another fascinating website with great ideas to get bats into your garden:
http://www.discoverwildlife.com/wildlife-gardens/how-attract-bats-your-garden
Provide a source of water for bats too, a bird bath is
perfect, but make sure the water is clean, don’t forget to change the water
regularly, this keeps it clean and it stops mosquitos from breeding in your
bird bath!
Here are a few links for building your own bat house (if all
else fails, you can purchase them online!)
Some bat houses don’t work, especially generic ones bought
online. If it’s been over a year and no bats have moved in, check this link for
ideas why. Or better yet, check this link before you buy a bat house online.
IF you DO plan on buying a bat house online, these links
below are good sites. The Organization for Bat Conservation and Bat
Conservation and Management will not only have good bat houses, but you will be
supporting a great cause by purchasing from them.
EDUCATION IS KEY
Hopefully you learned a lot about bats, why they are
important and how you can help save them from disappearing forever.
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| The Bat Jungle is a great museum located in Monte Verde, Costa Rica. If you happen to be in the area, after a day of zip-lining and exploring hanging bridges, be sure to make a stop and this fantastic bat exhibit! Of course, there are many fun places to go to learn more about bats, including many zoos! |
Save the bats posted this educational video on Facebook! If you like bats, Save the Bats is a great group to follow! https://www.facebook.com/savebats
Sources:
Bat Conservation International
Bat Conservation and Management
http://www.batmanagement.com/index.html
Colorado bat working group
Discover Wildlife
http://www.discoverwildlife.com/
National Geographic
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/common-vampire-bat/
Organization for bat conservation
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