Did you guess who?
Bats!
Bats get a bad rap. From horror movies to myth, bats are blamed for "sucking" blood and for carrying the deadly disease known as rabies. However, bats don’t really suck blood. The ones that do consume blood lap it up and yes rabies is possibly found in bats, but rarely do they try to bite humans.
Let’s take a look at some unusual and fascinating bats.
Teeny Tiny Bat
The world’s smallest bat is the size of a large bumblebee. What’s it called? A Bumblebee bat, of course!
This little guy only weighs about 2 grams and is 29-33mm long. It can be found in Western Thailand in the back of small caves and remote caverns. It’s reddish-brown or grey in colour, has relatively large ears, small eyes and a pig-like nose. The wings on the bumblebee bat are quite large (for its size) and have long tips on the end of each wing - this helps it hover like a hummingbird. The Bumblebee bat will live in a colony with anywhere from 10 to 500 bats. They leave their home at dusk and forage for bugs for about 20 to 30 minutes each night.
Sticky Feet
The Sucker Footed Bat is the only bat that has a suction-cup foot. They also produce a sticky, gooey substance that helps them climb just about any surface. It’s found in Madagascar and is about 2.3 inches long and weighs .3 ounces. They like to roast in the large, coned leaves of tropical plants and instead of roasting upside down, they will turn their bodies up so they can quickly flee from their cozy nest.Mega-Bat
We’ve looked at some little bats, let’s explore the world’s biggest bat; the Flying Fox Bat.
These big guys are located from southern Burma and Thailand eastward to the Philippines andsouthward to Sumatra, Java, Borneo and Timor. They can weigh from 1.3 to 2.4 pounds and have an average wing span of 4.9 feet!As the name suggests these bats have a fox-like head and are orangish-red and black in colour with stiff to woolly hair. They feed on nectar, blossom, pollen and fruits. In order to find this food, the Flying Fox uses its well-developed eye sight and sense of smell. Once it finds a tasty patch of fruit, the Flying Fox bat "crashes" into the tree in an attempt to grab hold of it. While it’s hanging upside down it will draw the fruit into it’s mouth with one of his back legs or with the sharp claws on its wings.
More Batty Facts
~ West Africa Woolly Bats live in the webs of the Colonial Spider
~ Little Brown Bats while hibernating can reduce its heart rate to 20 beats a minute and can stop breathing altogether for 48 minutes!
~ The only two bats that can walk on the ground are the lesser-tailed bat and the American Common Vampire bat
0 comments:
Post a Comment