Once upon a time
believe it or not I was terrified of the bat flying around my room on my
birthday (in August). Is this an omen? Is it going to get stuck in my
hair? Will it turn into a vampire? After I learned to respect bats and
understand them my thoughts turned why I and many others have this
involuntary negative reaction to these fascinating creatures. Below are
my findings as to why we react as we do to bats.
Bats have been around
for a very long time: their fossils have been found, and they date back
approximately 50 million years. Bats have been long been part of
natures checks and balances - as their numbers are decreasing what
effect will that have on the stability of our environment. They eat a
lot of flying insects, such as mosquitoes and others. Bats
are considered one of natures most effective forms of insect control!
Bats are mammals like
us !! In fact if you look at a bat or a photograph of a bat upright with
its arms outstretched its body closely resembles ours!! They are
docile, and they take wonderful care of their young. They lick them and
fix their fur, and they play with them like human mothers do with their
babies. Its "wings" aren't actually wings at all, but hands with
elongated fingers between which are soft membranes which continues back
to connect the legs. If you hold your arms out, thumbs up and fingers
down and imagine that your fingers were long, and that they reached all
the way to the floor. Now imagine that there was webbing between these
long fingers. It is the long webbed fingers and workable thumbs that
help them hold their young, catch insects, crawl and climb. Bats,
scientifically are classified as Chiroptera which means "hand-winged".
One
of the myths about bats is that they are blind. FALSE! Bats are
not blind. But they do have big ears which help in "echo
location". They have acute hearing to catch the echoes of their
high-pitched squeaks bouncing off bushes fences, walls and insects. The
sound may be inaudible to humans, but to a bat in flight it enables he
or she to scoop insects from the air and to avoid trees and humans and
to fly in complete darkness. Do they want to get tangles in your hair?
NO! If a bat swoops near a person it's because it happens to be located
where the bats next meal is flying.
In the Eastern part of
the US we are most likely to encounter Myotis lucifuqus, the
little brown bat. The little brown bat has a wing span of about eight
inches and weighs between a quarter and a third of an ounce. Many
people aren't even aware that they share their home with bats until one
ends up in their living space. This is what happened to me. A little
brown bat is so tiny that it can squeeze through very small openings and
enter living space around plumbing pipes. When they do encounter humans
it’s a mistake they don't want to be there. Some people kill them and
burn their bodies (some old Dracula stuff). People who realize that
bats are not harmful will open windows to let them fly out.
If you would like to
invite bats to your yard (perhaps to keep your evening insects
under control), you can do so by simply putting up a bat house. Bat
houses have been widely used in Europe for more than 60 years, but only
in the last several years have become popular in the United States and
Canada... Once an understanding of bats is gained you'll find a healthy
respect for these fellow mammals is in order, I did.
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One
of the myths about bats is that they are blind. FALSE! Bats are
not blind. But they do have big ears which help in "echo
location". They have acute hearing to catch the echoes of their
high-pitched squeaks bouncing off bushes fences, walls and insects. The
sound may be inaudible to humans, but to a bat in flight it enables he
or she to scoop insects from the air and to avoid trees and humans and
to fly in complete darkness. Do they want to get tangles in your hair?
NO! If a bat swoops near a person it's because it happens to be located
where the bats next meal is flying.
under control), you can do so by simply putting up a bat house. Bat
houses have been widely used in Europe for more than 60 years, but only
in the last several years have become popular in the United States and
Canada... Once an understanding of bats is gained you'll find a healthy
respect for these fellow mammals is in order, I did.
