Other Bats in the World and De-Bunking Myths

I've mentioned that in Wisconsin we have insectivorous bats. They are also known as micro-bats. Other countries have fruit-eating, mega-bats, and yet, others have blood-drinking, micro-bats.

Many people have a fear of bats, or have learned to hate bats based on the movies regarding these as "blood-sucking" dangerous, ugly creatures. In South America, Vampire Bats, were not known to drink the blood of humans, but moreso, they favored that of livestock. Scientists have learned that the saliva of these bats can be a very valuable resource for medicine because it contains a "non-clotting" agent that they have isolated and are now able to replicate, without harming animals.

Bats are not "blind". They see perfectly fine. In the dark, however, their means of locating objects to either avoid, or that they are in search of, if by echo-locating. Many bats see as well as humans. Mega-bats do not use echolocation, though. They do not eat insects, instead, they sustain themselves on fruit, and since fruit does not move, as "prey", there is no need for echolocation.

Bats do not entangle themselves in human hair. Bats can distinguish what objects are in the dark and move around them gracefully by using this echo-location. The problem occurs when a human sees the bat flying toward it and moves rapidly in one or another direction at the very last second, and crashes into the bat. If we would stay still, the bat would simply fly right past us. If a bat can detect a mosquito net, placed in its way to capture it, and move around it instead, it can certainly detect humans and their hair.

Vampire Bats do not suck the blood of victims. They actually lap it up, like a dog or cat laps water, after making tiny incisions in the skin. Also, the amount of blood they lap up is miniscule, roughly one or two ounces. They do not suck their "victims" dry, killing them.

Not ALL bats have rabies. People still shouldn't handle bats with their bare hands unless they are vaccinated against rabies. All mammals are able to contract rabies, however less than 1 % of bats actually do. More people die of rabies contracted due to dog bites each year in the U.S., than from bat bites.

Bats are NOT flying rodents, nor are they birds. Their skeletal structure is very closely related to humans. They have 32 teeth, five fingers and five toes,as we do. The five fingers are actually their wings. They are of the Order Chiroptera . Chiroptera literally means "hand-wing". Their hands are wings. Their thumb is the little "hook" at the top of the wing and they utilize it to climb.The other "fingers" are much longer proportionally, than ours and are located within the membrane line webbing of their fragile wings.

If we didn't have bats, farmers would have to use millions of tons more of pesticides each year, thereby raising the cost and harmfullness of food we eat. We would not have Bacardi Rum, nor tequila, because fruit bats (or mega-bats) pollinate plants and distribute seeds of the agave plant, as well as many others.

Bats eat many times their weight in insects each night, enabling many of us to use less bug spray, which can be harmful to ourselves, and the environment, alike.

Bats are exceptional, smart, and valuable animals. We need to make every effort we can to conserve them as a resource we cannot live without.