Bats

     This evening when we went outside to eat dinner we noticed some sort of droppings on our picnic table.  After we finished we cranked the umbrella part way up only to find a bat hanging on the inside.  Maybe he/she is the reason we have not had many mosquitoes pestering us.  Below are a few shots I took of the little guy.

 Bats

Bats are the only mammals capable of true flight. With extremely elongated fingers and a wing membrane stretched between, the bat’s wing anatomically resembles the human hand,Almost 1,000 bat species can be found worldwide. In fact, bats make up a quarter of all mammal species on earth!
Fast Facts
Size: Bats are divided into two suborders: Megachiroptera, meaning large bat, and Microchiroptera, meaning small bat. The largest bats have a 6 foot wingspan. The bodies of the smallest bats are no more than an inch long.
Lifespan: Most bats live longer than most mammals of their size. The longest known lifespan of a bat in the wild is 30 years for a little brown bat.


Did You Know?
A single little brown bat can eat up to 1000 mosquitoes in a single hour, and is one of the world's longest-lived mammals for its size, with life spans of almost 40 years.

Diet
70% of bats consume insects, sharing a large part of natural pest control. There are also fruit-eating bats; nectar-eating bats; carnivorous bats that prey on small mammals, birds, lizards and frogs; fish-eating bats, and perhaps most famously, the blood-sucking vampire bats of South America.



Click for:

            Brown Bat Video

     What Sounds do Bats Make?

                  Bat Sounds