I'm going batty waiting for our referral!!! Amanda asked...and to be honest this is driving me batty!
Since I haven't anything else to blog about.....
FACTS ABOUT BATS AND AMAZING BAT TRIVIA!
IMPORTANT BAT FACTS...
1) Nearly 1,000 kinds of bats account for almost a quarter of all
mammal species and most are highly beneficial.
2) A single little brown bat can catch 600 mosquitoes in just one
hour.
3) A colony of 150 big brown bats can protect local farmers from
up to 18 million or more rootworms each summer.
4) The 20 million Mexican free-tails from Bracken Cave, Texas,
eat 250 tons of insects nightly.
5) Tropical bats are key elements in rain forest ecosystems, which
rely on them to pollinate flowers and disperse seeds for count-
less trees and shrubs.
6) In the wild, important agricultural plants, from bananas, bread-
fruit and mangoes to cashew, dates and figs rely on bats for polli-
nation and seed dispersal.
7) Tequila is produced from agave plants whose seed production
drops to 1/3,000th of normal without bat pollinators.
8) Desert ecosystems rely on nectar-feeding bats as primary polli-
nators of giant cacti, including the famous organ pipe and saguaro
of Arizona.
9) Bat droppings in caves support whole ecosystems of unique
organisms, including bacteria useful in detoxifying wastes, im-
proving detergents, and producing gasohol and antibiotics.
10) An anticoagulant from vampire bat saliva may soon be used to
treat human heart patients.
11) Contrary to popular misconceptions, bats are not blind, do not
become entangled in human hair, and seldom transmit disease to
other animals or humans.
12) All mammals can contract rabies; however, even the less than
half of 1% of bats that do, normally bite only in self-defense and
pose little threat to people who do not handle them.
13) Bats are exceptionally vulnerable to extinction, in part because
they are the slowest reproducing mammals on earth for their size.
Most produce only one young a year.
14) Nearly 40% of American bat species are in severe decline or al-
ready listed as endangered. Losses are occurring at alarming rates
worldwide.
AMAZING BAT TRIVIA...
1) The world's smallest mammal is the bumblebee bat of Thailand
which weighs less than a penny.
2) Giant flying foxes that live in Indonesia have wingspans of nearly
six feet.
3) The common little brown bat of North America is the world's
longest-lived mammal for its size with life spans exceeding 32
years.
4) Mexican free-tailed bats sometimes fly up to two miles high to
feed or to catch tailwinds that carry them over long distances at
speeds of more than 60 miles per hour.
5) The pallid bat of western North America is immune to the stings
of scorpions and even the seven-inch centipedes upon which it
feeds.
6) Fishing bats have echolocation so sophisticated that they can
detect a minnow's fin as fine as a human hair protruding only two
millimeters above a pond's surface.
7) African heart-nosed bats can hear the footsteps of a beetle
walking on sand from a distance of more than six feet.
8) Red bats, which live in tree foliage throughout most of North
America, can withstand body temperatures as low as 23 degrees
during winter hibernation.
9) Tiny woolly bats of West Africa live in the large webs of colonial
spiders.
10) The Honduran white bat is snow white with a yellow nose and ears.
It cuts large leaves to make "tents" that protect its small colonies
from jungle rains.
11) Frog eating bats identify edible from poisonous frogs by listening
to the mating calls of male frogs. Frogs counter by hiding and
using short, difficult-to-locate calls.
12) Vampire bats adopt orphans and have been known to risk their
lives to share food with less fortunate roost-mates.
13) Male epauleted bats have pouches in their shoulders that contain
large, showy patches of white fur, which they flash during courtship
to attract mates.
14) Mother Mexican free-tailed bats find and nurse their own young,
even in huge colonies where many millions of babies cluster at up
to 500 per square foot.
You can all blame Amanda for this post!! hee hee
Fran and Losiloni.... These are for you!! ;)
