Bats

A look at the only flying mammal.

The bat has many parts.

Some are more complex than others.

(http://www.batcon.org/discover/species/naturalhistory.html)

Some basic parts of the bat:

(http://members.aol.com/bats4kids2/look.htm)

• EARS:   Bats have very good hearing.  They use it for finding food and locating their babies.  For insect and fish eaters, the big ears help with echolocation.   Usually, echoes are received by funnel-shaped ears that face forward.

• NOSE:   The sense of smell is well developed in most bats.  It is used to find and identify certain foods and to recognize roost mates and young.  Fruit eating bats can find their food by the smell of the ripening fruit.   Nectar seeking bats gather pollen on their snout, and by going from flower to flower help create new plants.

• EYES: Bats being blind is one of the major misconceptions.  For example, flying fox bats have very good eyesight and they use their eyes along with their excellent sense of smell to help find food in the dark.  Bats' eyes are better at seeing in the dark.   Most see objects only in black and white, but color vision is known to exist in some old world fruit bats. Believe it or not, some bats see MUCH better than humans!

• FEET:  With their strong claws, bats are able to hang upside down in their roosts. Fishing bats also use their claws to scoop up the fish they will eat.

• HANDS AND WINGS:  Bats fly by using their hands and wings. While the wings are flapping, bats can go up or down by moving the membrane between the body and fifth finger.  This is called "lift."  Bats move forward (called "thrust") by changing the shape of the membrane between the second and fifth fingers. 

• FUR ON THEIR BODY:  You can tell that a bat is a mammal because it has fur or hair on its body.  The fur protects the bat because different colors and designs can serve as camouflage and they can hide from danger.  The fur is kept clean by regular licking, somewhat like what a cat does.   In the winter it helps keep the bat warm.

ECHOLOCATIONMost bats navigate, and communicate, by using high frequency sounds that are emitted from the nose or mouth and bounce off of

obstacles. This is called echolocation. It gives the bat a view of the surrounding world. Bats can tell what the object is by the way the returning frequencies sound to them. And they can tell how far away an object is by the time it takes the waves to return to the bat.

This method of navigation is used widely, in dolphins, and even in modern robots. However, the bat’s sonar is so highly advanced, it is billions of times more efficient than our man-made systems. The frequency emitted from the bat is so high, it is not possible for

humans to hear it, we have special machines for that. -This picture shows waves being emitted from the bat (thicker), bouncing off of the moth (thinner) and traveling back to the ears to be interpreted.

(Picture from: http://www.batcon.org/discover/species/naturalhistory.html)

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