Bats

The glowing sun slips beneath the horizon, and red clouds  graze the graying evening sky. A rising moon casts an amber glow over the outstretched arms of oak trees; shadows grow together as the chilly night air creeps in. A medley of croaking, hooting, and rustling echoes in the darkness.

Silent shadows flutter overhead swooping down once, then again, and again, and again. Winged mammals of the darkness vacuum the night sky, each gliding body consuming hundreds and hundreds of insects a night. Foraging all night long, they return to their roosts before sun-up. And then they retire hanging upside down, shrouding themselves from the day by wrapping leathery wings around their tiny bodies.

There are almost one thousand species of these nocturnal flying mammals we call “bats” in existence today. Yet for all their numbers, bats are the most misunderstood of all creatures.

Bat World Sanctuary in Mineral Wells, Texas, and its founder Amanda Lollar, are out to change the bad rap bats have gotten in the past. At Bat World Sanctuary, not only is Amanda dedicated to the rescue and rehabilitation of bats, but also to educating the public on the importance of bats in our ecosystems. Each year thousands of children visit Bat World and during the summer, wildlife rehabilitators travel to Texas to attend “Bat Boot Camp” for wildlife rehabilitators.

Fed so many untrue myths about bats, many people fear them and  regard them as nothing more than flying rodents—mice and rats with wings. But in reality, bats are extremely beneficial, and relatively harmless to humans.

Bats have a keen sense of smell. Fruit bats use this sense of smell and their night vision to locate fruit, nectar, flowers, and pollen. These bats pollinate night-blooming flowers and disperse or drop seeds after they consume the fruit of these plants.

Insect-eating bats consume huge amounts of night-flying insects, a food source that not too many other animals exploit. Bats play a crucial role in reducing insect populations such as mosquitoes.

Another amazing characteristic of bats is their wings which are really very long arms. Their fingers support the wing membrane called the patagium. The petagium is made of a double layer of skin—it is both flexible and tough. Flapping their wings, bats actually swim through the air, sometimes sweeping insects towards their mouth with their wings.

Bats are also very social. They usually live in large groups called colonies. A female bat gives birth to only one pup a year, and she feeds that pup for almost eight months. When a female bat returns from foraging for food, she can locate her own young among hundreds or thousands of others by its unique cry and smell.

Bats make up one quarter of the mammal species on our earth. Even though there are large colonies of bats in the world, over half of these bat species are listed as endangered.

Bats have colonized most parts of the globe, including far-flung islands such as New Zealand and Hawaii, where they are the only native land mammals. They form the order Chiroptera, which is split into two suborders: Old World fruit bats and insect-eating New World bats.

At Bat World’s locations throughout the United States, Amanda Lollar and her volunteers are protecting Planet Earth and all its wildlife. Their mission is to provide rescue, rehabilitation, and release to the wild for injured bats. When a bat can no longer fend for itself in the wild, Bat World provides a permanent home.

Since bats and their vital role in planet Earth’s ecosystems are so misunderstood, Bat World continually reaches out to educate children and adults.  Visit Bat World’s web site to learn more. Uncover some of the mysteries about how bats eat and fly. Have your class join Bat World’s “Adopt-A-Bat” program. Learn more about how you can protect these Misunderstood Mammals of Flight. After all, it’s their planet too!

www.batworld.org