Introduction to Bats

This website, batdetective.com, has been designed to educate all age groups on the life styles of bats

These creatures are probably the most misunderstood creatures in the world. They come out while we sleep and are back in their roosts long before we are up and about in the morning. Most people only get to see a fleeting glimpse of a shadow that shoots by in the twilight. In Africa tribes believe that bats bring bad omens while in China bats bring good luck and can be seen embroidered on the gowns of emperors. The Chinese word ‘FU’ can mean bat or good luck depending on its pronunciation.

Bats belong to a family called CHIROPTERA, which means ‘hand wing’ in Greek. They are the only mammals that are capable of true flight. Flying Squirrels can’t fly but can only glide downwards using a flap of skin stretched between their front and back legs. The wing of a bat is very similar to our hand except that its fingers are elongated. If we were to have fingers like a bat’s they would be about 6 feet long

There are almost 1000 species of bats in the world living on every continent including except the polar regions. Worldwide there are only 5000 species of mammal. Bats belong to two bat families microchiroptera and megachiroptera. Microchiroptera are small bats with quite large ears and are the sort of bat people living in Europe and North America are going to see. Microchiroptera bats eat insects while the megachiroptera with their large eyes eat fruit and are found mainly in rainforest. There is one species of bat in the wrong family. It is one of the megachiroptera that is so small it was wrongly classed as a micro bat.

Bats range in size from the smallest called the HOG-NOSED BAT, which is the size of a queen bumblebee to the largest bat in the world that has a wingspan of 6 feet. This bat is the KALONG from Thailand.

Few people realize that bats are mammals and nourish their young on milk. They have the same senses as us plus one extra. This is their prey and navigating system called ECHOLOCATION.  With this bats can see their night time world with more accuracy than we can see it during daylight hours