The bat is a peculiar creature which flies and yet is not regarded as a bird. It comes under the category of mammals. Bats are only mammals capable of flight. The mammals are those animals whose females give birth to the young and suckle them. Unlike birds they don’t have feathers on their bodies but have hair. The young ones of the bat are born directly and fed on mother’s milk. It also has hair on its body. But it is the only mammal which has wings for flying. Bats are night time creatures. They have leather-like wings that enables them to swoop and glide through the darkness catching moths and other airborne insects.

The study of fossils has revealed that bats were in existence some 60 million years ago too. There are nearly 1000 different types of bats including red bats, brown bats and dog-faced bats.

Most of the bats live on insects and worms. In tropical areas they live on fruits and flowers only. There are some other kind of bats which feed on the blood of other animals and birds - they are called the ‘vampire bats’. Perhaps this is the reason why many people fear bats. The biggest vampire bat is around 30 cms. Their teeth are as sharp as needles. They pierce their teeth into the skin of an animal and suck its blood with the help of their tongues.

How does a bat see in the night

While flying, the bat produces high frequency sound waves from its mouth, which are so high-pitched that most humans cannot hear them. This is called echolocation. The sounds made by the bat bounce off a nearby object such as tree or a moth. The bat can detect the returning echoes with its large, forward-pointing ears, and in a split second it works out the size, distance and direction of the object.

Some experiments have been conducted on the bat. In one experiment, ropes were suspended from the ceiling of a room. Few bats, with their eyes sealed with gum were made to fly in the room. It was observed that the bats were flying without colliding with any of the ropes. This experiment proved that bats don’t make use of their eyes while flying. After this the mouths and ears of these bats were closed and they were again left in the room. This time they experienced difficulty in flying. They collided with the ropes or the walls quite frequently. It has been concluded on the basis of this observation that they take the help of their ears and mouths while flying.

Hibernation

Many warm-blooded animals need extra energy in order to stay warm in cold winter months, but the source of that energy such as food is scarce in winter. To save energy, bats allow their bodies to cool and their heart beat and breathing to slow down for part of the day or night. This is called torpor. Bats often huddle together as they hang upside down to prevent too much heat loss.

Many kinds of bats are threatened because of the loss of their forest homes for farmland and because of the increasing use of insecticides on the food they eat.

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