Bats have so many superpowers and are 60 million years old. The world needs bats to serve several functions. But why are bats dangerous?
Here’s a video about 10 cool facts about bats, if you want the text version, scroll past the video.
10 COOL FACTS ABOUT BATS
Bats, often shrouded in mystery and misconception, are fascinating creatures that play essential roles in various ecosystems. Representing one of the largest groups of mammals, they exhibit remarkable diversity, with over 1,400 species worldwide.
From their unique ability to navigate through echolocation to their crucial roles in pollination and insect control, bats are integral to maintaining ecological balance.
Bats have a lot of superpowers that I can only dream of having.
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10. “As blind as a bat”
This saying likely was coined over 2,300 years ago by Aristotle. The ancient Greek philosophers didn’t know much about bats, and actually, bats are not blind at all. Most bats have excellent vision during the day.
Bats are nocturnal though, and rely on echolocation while hunting at night and navigating caves. Echolocation is the ability to form a 3D spatial image, or map, of the surrounding area by using sound alone.
A quick series of chirps will bounce off of a surface or an insect, then, back to the bat’s ears. Bats have a special ability to process these incoming sound reflections. Dolphins, whales, and even some blind people also use echolocation.
9. A falling take-off
Most bats cannot start flying from the ground. They need to fall about half a meter first to gain speed and clearance for their fragile wings. If a bat tried to take off from the ground, it would break its wings by flapping them against the hard ground.
This is why bats hang upside down high above the ground. They can quickly drop into flight if they are startled from this position. Bats have evolved clamp-like feet that require 0 energy to grip.
Instead, the bat has to use muscles to open the feet, and elastic tendons automatically close them. Even dead bats can stay hanging upside down. Their feet are kind of like one of these spring-loaded clamps.
8. Bats drink midflight
We just discussed how bats cannot take off from the ground, and therefore, they don’t like to land next to a lake to drink. They would have to waste their time and energy climbing back up a tree or cliff to get airborne again.
Instead, bats quickly swoop and glide over the lake to tap water. They will often circle around and have another go because a single flyby often leaves them still thirsty.
I was recently in Indonesia, and I saw bats drinking from the pool. Echolocation allows bats to easily find open water at night. Sound bounces off of water in a unique way. If a bat makes a miscalculation and crashlands into the water, don’t worry, it can swim quite quickly using its wings.
7. The most dangerous mammal on earth
They carry over 60 deadly viruses that can be easily transferred to humans. These viruses include Rabies, Marburg, Hendra, Nipah, Ebola, SARS, and MERs. Rabies is 100% fatal, and Ebola is up to 90%.
These viruses that pass from animals to humans are called zoonotic viruses.
Viruses breed easily in bats for 2 main reasons
1st, bats live in crowded colonies where disease can spread quickly. p
2nd, bats have a less active immune system than humans do. Bats don’t have an extreme response to these viruses.
This allows viruses to live longer in bats and also allows the bats to live longer. Humans often die from viral infection because of an overactive immune response called a cytokine storm.
And the real kick in the butt is that when these deadly viruses evolve inside of bats, they gain resistance to humans’ most effective immune response; FEVER! The virus strains that survived in bats have already adapted to survive fever themselves.
This is because every time a bat flies, the increased metabolic activity raises the temperature of the bat to well above 40C. So if a deadly virus comes from a bat, it is already immune to the human fever temperature.
6. Living fossils
65 million years ago, the dinosaurs became extinct, and we saw the rise of mammals. Bats evolved shortly after, 60 million years ago, and haven’t changed much since then.
Bats are very successful, able to eat a variety of food sources, fly, use echolocation, hibernate, migrate to better environments, and work together as an altruistic community.
Humans only came to prominence in the last 6 million years, so bats have been thriving 10x longer.
5. A diverse order
There are over 1,000 different species of bats, belonging to the order “Chiroptera.” This scientific name means “Hand wing.” If you look at a bat’s anatomy, you can see the entire wing is just webbing between the fingers. The wing is not the whole arm, like in birds.
Bats are further classified into 2 families, Macro and Micro.
An example of a macro bat is the flying fox. It weighs 1kg and has a wingspan of 1.5 meters. Macro bats eat exclusively fruits.
An example of a microbat is the bumble bee bat. It is the world’s smallest mammal and only weighs up to 2 grams. Bumble bee bats eat insects, but other microbats eat things like frogs, lizards, blood, fish, birds, and even other bats.
4. Draculin
Named after the famous Count Dracula from Transylvania, this protein is found in the saliva of vampire bats. Draculin is an anticoagulant and helps blood flow after a vampire bat bites its host.
Scientists are researching the use of draculin to prevent blood clots, heart attacks, and strokes. If you didn’t know, in the USA 80% of all pharmaceutical drugs were discovered by studying nature. 74% from plants, 18% from fungi, 5% from bacteria, and only 3% from animals.
Draculin is still in the research phase, but today, the most common blood additive drug that comes from animals is insulin.
3. Hardy Hibernators
Like bears, most cold-climate bats sleep all winter to wait for food sources to replenish.
Ideal hibernation temperatures are 0-5 degrees C. Bats usually hibernate for about 6 months, but some cold-climate bats actually migrate, instead.
Bats in Texas migrate to Mexico to survive the winter, chasing the insects. Global warming is changing the migration habits of bats, and it is wreaking havoc on farms. Farmers rely on these bats to population-control the insects that would eat their crops. The bats’ changed behavior may result in failed harvests.
2. We need bats
About 20% of the world’s bats are listed as threatened.
Even though bats are scary and carry many diseases, we need them. Similar to bees, bats are the only way certain crops can be naturally pollinated. Remember, bats have been around for 60 million years? So many plants rely on bats alone as their pollinators.
Without bats, we won’t have bananas, avocados, or mangoes. Also, 80 plants being harvested for pharmaceutical uses will fail as well.
We don’t only need bats for pollination. They are essential for insect and pest control. A green farming solution can involve bats instead of dangerous insecticides. If bats go extinct after 60 million years of dominance, it will not only be sad but a huge blow to several ecosystems and industries.
1. Reciprocal altruism, what does that mean?
Reciprocal altruism means helping a struggling individual, with the hopes of that individual helping you in the future.
Vampire bats eat half of their body weight in blood per night and will starve to death in just 3 days if they can’t feed.
It comes at a huge cost or sacrifice, but sometimes a vampire bat will regurgitate its meal to a completely unrelated bat in the colony. This helps a sick or injured bat who couldn’t participate in the night’s hunt.
It is an uncommon social phenomenon not seen often in nature. If the giving bat is now only 2 days away from starving to death, it is a huge risk.
It turns out that the specific sick bat who got helped and other bats who observed the selfless act won’t forget this goodwill.
When the helpful bat gets hurt in the future, the colony will remember to return the favor.
At the same time, bats who never reciprocate the favor? They won’t get helped in their time of need.
FINAL THOUGHTS ON FACTS ABOUT BATS
Bats, often shrouded in mystery and misconception, are fascinating creatures that play essential roles in various ecosystems. Representing one of the largest groups of mammals, they exhibit remarkable diversity, with over 1,400 species worldwide.
From their unique ability to navigate through echolocation to their crucial roles in pollination and insect control, bats are integral to maintaining ecological balance.
This introduction aims to shed light on the intriguing world of bats, exploring their behaviors, ecological importance, and the challenges they face.
I hope that you found this list of 10 cool facts about bats helpful and educational.
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