Bats

Bats are a symbol of Halloween, but how much do you know about them?

Name

We call them bats now, but they weren’t always called that. In old English and old Germanic languages, they were called ‘flittermouse’. The word Bat came from the Swedish word ‘bakka’, which comes from the Latin word ‘blatta’ and means moth.

Habitat

Bats live across the world and are on all continents apart from the North and South Poles. There are lots of different species of bat, each evolved to fit their location.

Bats like to live in caves, trees, and hollows, anywhere that is dark during the day. This is because smaller species of bats are usually nocturnal. They even like in man-made buildings like barns and attics.

Larger bats from Asia and Africa prefer to live in trees as they can sleep at night and go out during the day.

Features

Bats are the only flying mammals. They have wings made of a thin stretched out skin. In many species, this has unique properties that help it heal in case it gets torn.

The smallest bat in the world weighs only 2g and is called Kitti’s hog-nosed bat.

The largest bat in the world is the giant golden-crowned flying fox. This is a mega-bat that can weigh 1.6kg with a 1.7m wingspan!

Food

Different bats eat different things. Lots of them eat insects like moths and flies, and some of them like fruits and nectar.

There are some species of vampire bat that drink the blood of cows and livestock. These live in Central and South America.

Human relations

There are so many different types of bats and each of them are threatened at different levels. Here in the UK bats are protected as their habitat is sometimes lost.

If you find a bat it is illegal to disturb it, even if it is in your attic!