The nocturnal mammals: bats hunt at night and can eat their own body weight of bugs in a single night. They can live for over 30 years and are the fastest mammals on the planet - being able to fly over 60 miles per hour. In fact, the Mexican free-tailed bat has been known to fly up to 100 miles per hour.
Most bats are feared or have a distasteful reputation due to the vampire bat and the myths surrounding them. Of course you will be hard pressed to find someone who actually believes vampires like Dracula are real, however, many people who dislike bats will attest to the reason as being that they 'suck blood'. (Similar to how the wolf is feared by many children as a deadly predator more from the fairy tales of the Grimm Brothers than from objective truth.)
Often times, bats are mistaken for vampire bats (the one species of bat that does drink blood) - at the expense of the majority of species of bat - most of which eat insects, like mosquitos. In fact, among the 1,100 different bat species, only three drink blood: the common vampire bat, the hairy-legged vampire bat, and the white-winged vampire bat; all three of which are native to Mid and South America almost exclusively.
In a more objective standpoint, many farmers of Mid and South America see vampire bats as pests due to the fact that they are capable of carrying rabies and other diseases and can infect their livestock. Extermination attempts, however, can lead to harmless fruit and insect-seeking bats losing their habitat and lives in the process as well.
Vampire bats, despite the legends, do not suck blood. In fact, they have less teeth than normal bats since they do not eat flesh or meat. They pierce their sleeping victims and then lap up the blood. It is typically painless, as the victim rarely wakes up, and although the bat is able to drink up to its weight in blood, it cannot drain enough blood to do any harm to the animal victim.
Although there are very rare occasions where a vampire bat bites a human, vampire bats typically go after sleeping cattle, pigs, horses, deer, and even birds. They are so light and agile, their weight does not typically wake the targeted animal, and they can feed on a single animal for over 30 minutes.
Vampire bat bites can lead to infections; however, they are also relatively clean animals who groom themselves regularly. They also are known to take care of orphaned bats and feed those too weak to hunt themselves - which is important, for a vampire bat can die of starvation after only two nights without blood.
Vampire bats are capable of being tamed and can be friendly towards humans.
Perhaps the most amazing aspect of the bat is the way in which they navigate at night: echolocation. The bat emits a sound higher than human can hear - ultrasound. Like all sound, the waves spread out and bounce off of objects. The bat's ear, however, is especially tuned to ear the reverberations and return waves (consider being able to hear your own echo no matter where you are) and then is able to distinguish distance from the object the sound bounced off of.
The bat, however, is not blind. It can see almost as good as humans - only, their eyes are tuned for dawn to dusk. Their eyesight during the day may be dismal, but they don't tend to be active during the day.
Bats have different sounds they make, and each bat has its own unique call pattern. They typically have at least one for searching for food, one for feeding - where the bat swoops in for the kill, and another for social calling.
Most bats are feared or have a distasteful reputation due to the vampire bat and the myths surrounding them. Of course you will be hard pressed to find someone who actually believes vampires like Dracula are real, however, many people who dislike bats will attest to the reason as being that they 'suck blood'. (Similar to how the wolf is feared by many children as a deadly predator more from the fairy tales of the Grimm Brothers than from objective truth.)
Often times, bats are mistaken for vampire bats (the one species of bat that does drink blood) - at the expense of the majority of species of bat - most of which eat insects, like mosquitos. In fact, among the 1,100 different bat species, only three drink blood: the common vampire bat, the hairy-legged vampire bat, and the white-winged vampire bat; all three of which are native to Mid and South America almost exclusively.
In a more objective standpoint, many farmers of Mid and South America see vampire bats as pests due to the fact that they are capable of carrying rabies and other diseases and can infect their livestock. Extermination attempts, however, can lead to harmless fruit and insect-seeking bats losing their habitat and lives in the process as well.
Vampire bats, despite the legends, do not suck blood. In fact, they have less teeth than normal bats since they do not eat flesh or meat. They pierce their sleeping victims and then lap up the blood. It is typically painless, as the victim rarely wakes up, and although the bat is able to drink up to its weight in blood, it cannot drain enough blood to do any harm to the animal victim.
Although there are very rare occasions where a vampire bat bites a human, vampire bats typically go after sleeping cattle, pigs, horses, deer, and even birds. They are so light and agile, their weight does not typically wake the targeted animal, and they can feed on a single animal for over 30 minutes.
Vampire bat bites can lead to infections; however, they are also relatively clean animals who groom themselves regularly. They also are known to take care of orphaned bats and feed those too weak to hunt themselves - which is important, for a vampire bat can die of starvation after only two nights without blood.
Vampire bats are capable of being tamed and can be friendly towards humans.
Perhaps the most amazing aspect of the bat is the way in which they navigate at night: echolocation. The bat emits a sound higher than human can hear - ultrasound. Like all sound, the waves spread out and bounce off of objects. The bat's ear, however, is especially tuned to ear the reverberations and return waves (consider being able to hear your own echo no matter where you are) and then is able to distinguish distance from the object the sound bounced off of.
The bat, however, is not blind. It can see almost as good as humans - only, their eyes are tuned for dawn to dusk. Their eyesight during the day may be dismal, but they don't tend to be active during the day.
Bats have different sounds they make, and each bat has its own unique call pattern. They typically have at least one for searching for food, one for feeding - where the bat swoops in for the kill, and another for social calling.