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| Flight |
| Think bats and birds are related because they both fly? Think again. While the bird wing is composed of the parts that would make up the human arm (mostly Radius, Ulna and Humerus), the bat wing is composed of the parts that would make up the human hand. |
| What's more, birds have feathers which give them the ability to stop flapping their wings and glide on the air. Without feathers, bats must constantly move their wings to stay in the air. |
| Habitat |
| Bats can be found on every continent in the world except Antarctica and they occupy almost every ecosystem (exceptions be extremes in heat or cold). They eat everything from fruit, to insects, to blood (as I mentioned before). Bats serve as pollinators and insect control. They are a keystone species in many of the habitats in which they are found. A single little brown bat (myotis lucifugus) can catch 1,200 mosquitoes an hour. Bat droppings in caves can even support their own microbial ecosystem! |
| Species Specifics |
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| The little brown bat (myotis lucifugus) of North America is the most common bat in the state of Pennsylvania. It is insectivorous. It is also the longest lived mammal in the world for its size, sometimes living more than 30 years! |
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| The bumblebee bat (or Kitti's Hog-Nosed Bat) is widely recognized as the smallest mammal in the world. It's about the size of a jellybean! |
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| Tiny woolly bats of Africa live in the webs of colonial spiders! |
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| This page was last updated on 4 July 2008. It is maintained by Linsey Palazzi. |