Conor is Batty About Bats

I liked bats for as long as I can remember. Some people say bats are vicious! Some people think bats are dirty. Some think that they will try to fly into your hair.

All of those things are not true. Most bats are small. They are more afraid of people than we are of them. A healthy bat will try to avoid you and won't attack. They spend much of their time cleaning and grooming themselves. They can use their sight and echolocation to avoid you, they will not get tangled in your hair.

Here are some other facts you can tell people about bats.

Did You Know This About Bats?

There are 950 species of bats. Most bats eat insects or fruit. Some eat fish or small animals. Only the vampire bats feed on blood.
In China many people believe that if a bat files into your house it means good luck.
Bats are not blind, some see as well as people do. In the dark, many can see better. Some see as well as a person using night-vision goggles. Others rely less on their sight and use sound (echolocation) to find food.
The smallest bat is the Bumblebee Bat of Thailand. It weighs less than a penny. The largest bat is the Giant Flying Fox of Indonesia and has a six foot wingspan.
In Finland people believed that bats were the souls of the dead and it was possible that a person's soul could take on the form of a bat while he slept.
A brown bat can eat up to 3,000 insects in one night (many of these will be mosquitoes!)
Bats pollinate the agave plant used to make tequila. Without the bats, the plants would not survive.
Bats are the only mammals capable of unassisted flight.
The vampire bat was named after the European vampire legends.

Want to know what bat you are most like? Take my quiz!

Learn more about bats from my favorite bat links.