Bats

Bats

Introduction Enter a cave just as night approaches, and you might see a dark cloud pouring like smoke from the cave. It's a cloud of sorts, but it's not a rain cloud-it's a “ bat cloud. " Bats like to spend the daytime in the cool darkness of a cave hanging upside down from the ceiling, but nighttime is different- it is time to hunt. So thousands of bats take flight from the cave. They dive and dart about, snatching insects from the air.

About Bats Bats are one of the oldest groups of mammals to have lived on Earth. According to fossil records, they were sweeping through the air almost 60 million years ago. Bats flew through the Earth's skies before humans walked on the planet. Although bats have been around for all that time, they haven't changed much. Ancient fossils show that bats of long ago were very much like modern-day bats. There are close to 1, 000 kinds of bats. In fact, there are more kinds of bats than there are kinds of any other mammal. These bats are placed into two groups-microbats and megabats.

Microbats eat mostly insects, but some also eat small fish, mammals, and amphibians. The smallest microbat is the bumblebee bat, which is about as long as a paper clip. Microbats live in a wide range of places and can be found throughout the world.

Megabats eat fruits. They are found in warm, tropical areas where lots of fruit grows all year long. The largest megabat is the Malayan flying fox. It is so large that with its wings spread out, it would stretch the length of the average-sized bathtub. While some megabats are big, megabats are not always larger than microbats.

Bat Features Bats seem to get a bad rap when it comes to looks. In fact, some people might consider them downright ugly. Others think bats look fierce and scary. If you get to know bats better, you might change your opinion of them. You might even think that some bats are rather cute.