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The Truth About Bats

Compiled by Bindu Misra; Illustrations by Amarjeet Malik

Bats are among the world’s least appreciated and most endangered animals, thanks to centuries of myth and superstition. Contrary to common misconceptions, bats are not blind, they are not rodents and they won’t get tangled in your hair. The truth is that bats are mong the most gentle and beneficial animals on earth.

A bat is a winged mammal with the ability to fly. It’s ability to maintain sustained flight, unique among mammals, results from the modification of hand-like forelimbs into wings. Bats are mammals just like humans which means all bats are warm blooded, have hair, bear young ones and nurse them.

All bats can see but some use special sonar system called echolocation. These bats make high frequency calls either out of their mouths or noses and then listen for echoes to bounce from the objects in front of them. They’re able to form pictures in their brains by listening to the reflected sounds. In this way, bats are able to comfortably move around at night, avoiding predators, locating their food and capturing insects in total darkness.

Bats belong to the order Chiroptera and are divided into two suborders: the Megachiroptera (megabats) and the Microchiroptera (microbats). Microbats detect their prey using echolocation while most megabats cannot echolocate but have highly developed eyesight.

Starting out as insect eaters, there are now bats that live on fruit, fish, nectar, blood, rodents, frogs, and even other bats. With this great variability in their way of life, bats have become the second largest mammalian order and are now spread over most of globe.

Nearly 70% of the 950 species of bats feed mainly on insects. Others eat fruit, nectar, and pollen; a few eat blood, fish, or other mammals. Fruit eaters or frugivorous bats living in tropical climates have very good eyesight and sense of smell for finding ripe fruit to eat. The nectar and pollen feeders are found in desert areas. Carnivorous bats living in India, Southeast Asia, Australia and South America, have sharp claws and teeth for catching small vertebrates like fish, birds, small mammals and reptiles. A few Latin American bats called vampire bats eat only blood.

Vampire bats do not actually suck blood. They lap it up like a dog drinking water. They use their sharp, highly modified teeth to make a shallow wound and secrete an anticoagulant in their saliva to inhibit clotting of the blood. The vampire's bite is painful but not usually dangerous, though the saliva may transmit certain diseases.

Bats are nocturnal or active at twilight and hence natural enemies of night flying insects. A single bat can catch 200 mosquito-sized insects in one hour.

Unlike other animals, a bat’s body is best adapted for hanging upside down. Bats actually have specialised tendons that cling to their roosts without expending any energy. Hanging upside down also provide bats with roosting space away from predators in safe places in trees and building that few other animals can use.

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