BATS

BATS

Zoologist's refer to bats as “chiroptera”, this is the order of mammal that they belong in. I am not a scientist or a teacher or a professor. I am just an normal person and have been doing some reading on bats and found them to be quite interesting and serve a very useful purpose. So I thought I would write a little bit about them and maybe dispel some myths at the same time.

There are almost a thousand(1000) different types of bats. Each has its own unique characteristics, features, sizes and food, much like any other mammal. Bats are the only mammal capable of true flight and their skeleton is similar to ours. Their wings are anatomically like our hands with extremely elongated fingers. As per the picture above, you can see why the order is called “chiroptera” which means “hand-wing”.

Some fruit bats have a wingspan of six(6) feet and others are as small as a bumblebee. Some live on fruit and nectars and others eat only flying insects. Approximately 70% of all bats eat flying insects. Some micro-bats eat up to 300 bugs an hour and some can eat a thousand mosquitoes in an hour. So the next time that you have a barbecue , think about how much help a bat would be if there were lots of mosquitoes around, especially if your cooking at night and the sprays and chemicals just don't work or they stink so bad that who wants to use them. Because most bats normal homes are being destroyed on a continual basis, it may be necessary to put up some bat homes. I'll cover these in a later blog.

KenR