Interesting Facts About Bats

1. The largest known bat colony in the world is the Bracken Bat Cave in Texas, it has more than 30 million bats which eats more than 250 tons of insects every single night.

Bracken Cave Bats

When the bats leave the cave they form a large group which looks like a huge storm on radar.

2. In order to prolong copulation female Short-Nosed Fruit Bats actually perform oral sex (fellatio) on the males.

3. Some bats can fly up to 400 km in one single night, reach speeds of up to 100 km/h and fly as high as 3,000 meters.

4. A single bat can eat up to 600 insects in one hour.

5. The giant Golden-Crowned Flying Fox is the largest bat in the world with a wingspan of about six feet.

Golden Crowned Flying Fox Bat

6. There are more than 1,200 species of bats in the world and only 3 species are Vampire bats.

7. Bats play a very major role in spreading millions of seeds every year from the ripe fruit that they eat, infact some seeds will not sprout unless they have passed through the digestive tracts of a bat.

It is estimated that up to 95% of reforestation in the tropical rainforest is a result of seed dispersal from bats.

8. Contrary to popular belief, Vampire bats do not actually "suck" blood. What they do is that they "lap" the blood with their tongues very similar to the way dogs drink water.

Vampire Bat

9. A Vampire bat will rarely bite a human being and when it does it usually comes back the following night to feed from the same person. Vampire bats can tell people apart from the way they breath.

10. Bats are broadly classified into two groups: Megabats (Megachiroptera) which are mainly fruit-eating bats and Microbats (Microchiroptera) which are smaller and generally eats insects.

11. Bats are the only mammals in the world that can fly.

12. Bats can be found in every country on every continent in the world except Antarctica. Bats even live in the Arctic North Pole.

13. Some bats can live up to 40 years before they die. The Little Brown Bat is a very good example.

14. About 20% of all mammals in the world are bats.

15. About 70% of all bats eat insects, the remaining 30% eat fruits.

16. Vampire bats can move very well on the ground, infact they are the only bat species that can move well on the ground.

17. Most bats open their mouths when they call out their echo location signals, but some can emit this signal through their nose.

18. In Asia, especially China and Japan, bats are symbols of happiness and good fortune while in North America and Europe they are often associated with witchcraft and black magic.

19. Contrary to popular belief bats are not actually blind and they can see quite well, some species can even detect ultra-violet light.

20. The Tube-Lipped Nectar Bat (Anoura fistulata) boasts of the longest tongue, relative to body lenght, of any mammal in the world. The tongue is so long (about one and a half times it's body lenght) that the bat retracts it into it's rib cage when it's not in use.

Tube-Lipped Nectar Bat

21. Some female bats can control when they give birth by storing the male's sperms inside their body, some can even slow the development of the embryo inside them.

22. The smallest bat in the world is the Bumblebee Bat (Kitti's Hog-Nosed Bat) it is about the size of the bumblebee and can be found in Thailand. It is currently a critically endangered specie.

Bumblebee Bat

23. Bats that feed on frogs can accurately tell the difference between the poisonous and the edible frogs by listening to the call of the male frogs.

24. All the female bats in most bat colonies give birth to their babies at the same time.

25. Most female bats will give bat to only a single baby once in a year making them the slowest reproducing mammals in the world for their size. This also makes them vulnerable to extinction.

26. The Pallid Bat of North America feeds on scorpions and centipedes and is totally immune to their stings.

27. Female Mexican Free-Tailed bats can easily find their babies even in huge colonies where many millions of puppies cluster at up to 500 per feet.

28. The tiny Wooly Bats of West Africa live in the large webs of Colonial Spiders.