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A few words from our partners at Bat Conservation International:
Yes, bats are definitely cool.
More than 1,300 bat species worldwide display an amazing diversity as species evolved over at least 60 million years to survive in wildly varied habitats and food chains.
Here’s a few other things you might not know about bats of the world:
Bats are mammals that belong to the order Chiroptera (from the Greek cheir – “hand” and pteron -“wing”). The forelimbs of bats form webbed wings, making them the only mammals naturally capable of true and sustained flight.
Bats are the second largest group of mammals in the world. The largest mammal group is rodents. In many languages, the word for “bat” is similar with the word for “mouse” – for example in German where “Fledermaus” means “flutter” and “mouse”. Bats however are not closely related to mice. In fact on the molecular phylogenetic tree of mammals humans and rodents are more closely related to each other than to bats!
One genus of bats, Myotis, is more broadly distributed than any other terrestrial mammal genus. Other than Antarctica, bats of this genus can be found on every continent!
Bats are exceptionally vulnerable to extinction, in part because they are among the slowest reproducing mammals on Earth for their size. Most bat species only give birth to one pup, however some species can give birth to multiples. The hoary bat (Lasiurus cinereus) for example regularly has twins.
Most bats moms give birth to a single pup at a time, for good reason. Baby bats can weigh up to one-third of their mother’s body weight. To put that into perspective, just imagine birthing a 40-pound human infant!
The largest bat colony in the world roosts in Bracken Cave, Texas where over 15 million Mexican free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis) emerge from the cave in large columns to feed on surrounding farmland. This cave is a maternity colony, where females of this species migrate from Mexico every year to give birth.
The Brandt’s myotis (Myotis brandti) of Eurasia is the world’s longest-lived mammal for its size, with a lifespan that sometimes exceeds 38 years.