Author: Brandon Goins
In honor of Bat Week, and in the spirit of Halloween, we're highlighting one of our favorite spooky animals. Here are five reasons we're going batty for our flying mammal friends.
1. Bats are the only mammal capable of continued flight, as opposed to gliding.
Suddenly flying squirrels aren't so cool anymore.
2. It is a common misconception that bats are blind. However, they do use echolocation in order to see better in the dark.
Yes, bats have superpowers.
3. Not unlike humans, bats are only capable of rearing one pup a year. Although for bats this means that they are vulnerable to extinction.
4. Of the nearly 1,000 species of bats all over the world (17 of which call North Carolina home) only 3 are vampire bats. Vampire bats are a common way to refer to bats whose diet consists of blood, also called hematophagy.
5. Bats play a vital role in the pollination, protection, and production of several of our favorite plants and foods: including cacao (for chocolate), agave (for tequila), coffee, mango, almonds, rice, avocados, and strawberries.
Thank you, bats, for enabling my coffee dependence. Without you, I would have nothing to spill in my lap in the car on the way to the office every morning.
Visit Batweek.org to learn more about how you can take action to help our new friends, to find recipes with bat dependent ingredients, and to print off your own bat ears! Continue to celebrate bats this week by sharing your new knowledge about these friendly creatures and connecting with other bat lovers with the hashtag #BatWeek on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
For more information check out some of the sources for the information found in this post:
https://www.livescience.com/28272-bats.html
http://www.ncwildlife.org/Portals/0/Conserving/documents/Profiles/Bats_Species_Profile.pdf