Bat
From the Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can change
| Bats Fossil range: Late Paleocene - Recent |
||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 "Chiroptera" from Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur, 1904
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific classification | ||||||||||||
|
- For other meanings of the word "bat", please see Bat (disambiguation)
Bats are mammals in the order Chiroptera. Bats are the only mammals that can fly. (Other mammals like flying squirrels, or flying possums look like they can fly, but they can only glide in the air for short distances.) Bats are the second largest order of mammals.
Contents |
[change] Taxonomy (Classification)
- Order Chiroptera
- Megabats (Megachiroptera)
- Microbats (Microchiroptera)
[change] Appearance and Life
Bats fly with their wings that are made of skin stretched between the bones of the bat's arms and fingers.
Most bats are described as “nocturnal”, that is, they are active during the night, the dusk, or the dawn. Some of them use echolocation. This means instead of using their small eyes, they have special body parts they can use to find their way around by bouncing sound waves off of objects, like a radar.
Megabats eat fruit, nectar or pollen. Most microbats (7 out of 10) are “insectivorous”, that is, they eat insects, but some microbats eat small vertebrate animals (small mammals or fish), blood, or even other bats.
There are over 1,100 different kinds of bats. All these different kinds of bats are thought to make up as much as 20% of all mammal species.
Bats mostly live in caves or trees. In North America and in Europe they sometimes live in peoples houses without them knowing.
[change] Unusual bats
Fruit bats (Pteropodidae) are the largest of the bats. They eat fruit and can see well. There are 166 species, all found in the Old World.
Vampire bats live in Latin America. They are famous for only drinking blood.
The Fisherman bat Lives in Latin America and the Caribbean. It swoops low over water and grabs small fish with its claws.
The Hog-nosed bat, from Thailand, is the world's smallest bat, and is also one of the world's smallest mammals. It only weighs 2 grams.
[change] Bats and people
In the United Kingdom all bats are protected by law, and even disturbing a bat or its roost can be punished with a heavy fine.
Austin, Texas is the summer home to North America's largest urban bat colony (under the Congress Avenue bridge), an estimated 1,500,000 Mexican free-tailed bats, who eat an estimated 10 to 30 tons of insects each night, and attract 100,000 tourists each year.
In Sarawak, Malaysia bats are protected species, but the large naked bat and greater nectar bat are eaten by the local communities.
[change] Bats in folklore and fiction
In the West, Bats are associated with vampires, who are said to be able to change into bats. Bats are also a symbol of ghosts, death and disease. However bats are said to be lucky in some European countries, such as Poland.
The bat is used in fiction by both villains like dracula and heroes like Batman. Kenneth Oppel, wrote a series of novels , beginning with Silverwing, which feature bats as good characters.
An old wives' tale says that bats will entangle themselves in people's hair. This is untrue as bats can detect even a single hair, and fly around it. Among some Native Americans, such as the Creek, Cherokee and Apache, the bat is a trickster spirit. The Kwakiutl, however, see it as a symbol of happiness.
Chinese lore claims that the bat is a symbol of longevity and happiness, and is similarly lucky among the Arabs.
The bat is sacred in Tonga and West Africa and is often considered to be a person's soul.
In Java, the Ahool is a mythical giant bat, said to be a warning of death.
[change] Gallery
 A Megabat. |
 A colony of Megabats. |
 A colony of Microbats. |
 A Microbat. |
