Content:
- Who are Bats?
- How Can You Identify a Bat?
- Some Amazing Bat Facts
- Bats Biting
- When Would Bats Bite People?
- Are Bat Bites Dangerous?
- Before We Say Goodbye
They have had major roles in Hollywood films for decades – actually, they have been in films and movies almost since they were invented. However, these creatures sometimes believed to live for centuries, and even longer, had been here before; at the times when families would sit around the hearth to listen to stories or read novels during long winter nights, long before the radio and the television were invented, these dark presences provided stories to send shivers down the spines of children as well as adults. Stories of dark creatures attacking humans, stories of vampire bats biting…
In oral forms, with written texts or on the screens of televisions and cinemas, as well as on the stages of theatres all over the world, there has been a protagonist shrouded in mystery and darkness like no other… We are not talking about actors or actresses, famous or not, nor are we talking about mysterious film directors like Stanley Kubrick; in fact, we are not even referring to novelists and playwrights…
Yet, they have been in the collective imagination of the world round for decades if not centuries. And, to be precise, these are not even human beings – in fact, these creatures coming from the darkness of time as well as from the darkness of the night are the only flying mammals we know of bats!
Who are Bats?
Bats are flying animals, but they are a bit particular. In fact, if you think about a creature you are likely to find in the air or in the sky, most likely you will imagine a feathered animal (a bird) or an insect; although reptiles also flew, like in the case of the Pterodactyl, there are now a few of them that can glide, as there are fish that can jump so much that we like to call them, incorrectly, “flying” (they glide too); there are also some mammals that glide, but only one can fly: bats, indeed!
What is the difference between gliding and flying? In the first, you use air and its buoyancy to float in the sky for the time it naturally holds your body; so, if your body is light and has wide wings (or similar limbs), you will simply stay in the air for as long as possible. Flying, on the other hand, means using the air to lift yourself up and stay floating for as long as you wish; this is a huge difference, and evolutionists find explaining it a real challenge.
On the whole, bats have been described as “flying mice”, which, in a way, makes sense, but they are not exactly mice or rats.
How Can You Identify a Bat?
Apart from the fact that it is flying and it is a mammal, a bat has very long, triangular ears, small eyes, the hind legs are prehensile, and they are similar to those of birds, their wings are in reality webbed hands, and you can find nails at the end of them.
Finally, they have long canines in their mouths and their incisors are not developed like those of rats. To be honest, they are not even that closely related to rats and mice, as these are rodents, while bats are not; they do not chew on grass or nuts, but they hunt flying insects and the like.
Some Amazing Bat Facts
Bats are amazing animals, and there are quite a few things you may not know about them…
- Bats eat loads of insects, which makes them essential for the balance of the ecosystem; in fact, a single brown bat can eat up to an impressive 1,200 insects in an hour.
- Bats have impressive flying abilities, thanks to their ‘radar’ system for identifying obstacles and preys, they can change direction at literally a split second’s notice and avoid an obstacle with just a few centimetres to go; and they do all this despite being almost blind!
- Bats have a super fast metabolism; they can digest food much faster than other animals (especially us), which means that they basically never accumulate fat. In fact, they can digest food like fruit in as little as only twenty minutes.
- Bats are much mor precise than your GPS. Despite using satellites and the best technology in the world, applying both the Theory of Relativity and Quantum Theory to locate a place on Earth, humans are far less precise when it comes to geolocation than bats; bats, who use what is known as echolocation, are many, many times more precise than your GPS system; they can find objects that are as a few millimetres small and with millimetre can precision. And they do it, by (hear hear) calculating the size and distance of the object by sending an ultrasonic sound around and then measuring the time it takes to come back. The brain of a bat solves thousands of calculations every minute; basically, they deserve a Degree in Mathematics!
- Vampire Bats do not suck blood. Phew! Well, not actually phew, because despite the fact that they do not suck it, they still drink it, just they lap it up a bit like cats do with milk…
- The largest colony of bats is Bracken Cave, Texas and it has an estimated 20 million (!!!) individuals. That’s a city as big a Tokyo!
Bats Biting
Well, if you ever looked at a bat’s mouth, you would see long canines sticking out. They look a bit like the mouths of cats rather than those of dogs. Those teeth are very, very sharp indeed. “Why do they need them,” you may ask? Well, it seems to be a rule of nature: all carnivores and omnivores have long and sharp canines, while herbivores have a shirt and blunt ones.
This is one of the many arguments that show that people are actually herbivores, but, apart from this, it tells us a lot about the diet of bats; they are omnivorous animals, which means that they can eat both meat and vegetables – some of them also feed on pollen… Bigger species seem to prefer fruit and veggies, while smaller ones go more for an insect diet.
The question is will bats bite people? There are many stories going around about this, and most of them are myths, coming from films, books, and oral stories never checked by Science. However, let us make things clear…
Bats can bite humans, but this doe not mean that it happens regularly. Now, the story of being bitten by a bat while strolling peacefully in a park or on the way home from work is pure make-believe! Normal bats would never even dream of attacking a human being!
Why? To start with, they have no reason to do so… they are much better off flying in the sky in search of small prey than trying to attach a huge animal like a human being. They do not eat human flesh anyway, and they have no gripe against our species (even though they may have a reason to, as pesticides have greatly diminished the population of bats in many parts of the world).
When Would Bats Bite People?
The main cause for this is that humans have “started it”… Well, if you capture a bat, for example (which already is a difficult feat to accomplish), the little animal may try to break free by biting you. It is mainly exterminators or non-professionals who have tried to rid an attic or barn of bats who have been bitten by them. Basically, a bat will bite a human being if it is threatened and has no other way out.
The only exception to this is vampire bats; these are a bit unusual as bats, as they feed on the blood of mammals (which they suck), especially big herbivores like cows, but also smaller animals like chickens, etc. It appears that occasionally they have been known to bite humans, but this is not frequent at all and the cases reported are really rare indeed.
The worst episode happened in Peru in 2010 when four children died after being bitten by vampire bats. However, they only live in Central America and South America and tend to prefer wild and non-urban habitats where they can roost on huge trees. So, if you live in a city in Europe, Canada, the US, New Zealand or Australia, etc. you are running no risk at all.
Are Bat Bites Dangerous?
Bat bites rarely carry disease, but in some cases they do. Rabies has been found in a small minority of bats. Australian bats can carry bat lyssavirus (ABLV), which has similar symptoms to rabies. The number of people infected with rabies in the US through bat bites a year is really small, ranging in two-digit numbers (depending on the year, twenty, thirty, etc.)
Now, even if the chances of contracting rabies are rare after being bitten by a bat, ad very, very few bats carry rabies, there is a health precaution you need to keep in mind. Rabies is a potentially deadly disease. So, if by any chance you get bitten by a bat, do not run any risk and contact a doctor immediately. Better safe than sorry…
If you then find, after being bitten by a bat, that you have any of these symptoms do hurry to the emergency and get treated for rabies:
- Tingling and twitching near where the bat bite is
- Fever and high temperature
- Headache
- Nausea
- Fatigue
- Muscle pains
- Loss of appetite
Before We Say Goodbye
So, between myth and reality, bats take flights in the imagination of humans, but hardly ever threaten our wellbeing and health. Fascinating though they are, these unique mammals have captivated us in gothic stories and films, but they are usually not aggressive to people and they’d rather put their teeth into a elicit us meal than a human body.
However, what really matters is that bats are essential to the ecosystem and, even if you are scared of them, do not worry, there is no need to harm them as they would not want to harm you.
