Bats

Bats. Written by Ned Jensen.

蝙蝠。 内德·延森 撰文

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.

引言。 夜幕降临时走进洞穴，你可能会看到一团黑云像烟雾一样从洞里涌出来。 它算是一团云，但不是雨云。 这是蝙蝠云呀。 蝙蝠白天喜欢待在洞穴阴凉的黑暗里，倒挂在洞顶。 不过到了夜晚就不一样了。 该出门捕猎啦。 于是成千上万只蝙蝠飞出洞穴。 它们上下翻飞、左冲右突，在空中捕捉昆虫。

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, micro bats and mega bats.

认识蝙蝠。 蝙蝠是地球上最古老的哺乳动物类群之一。 根据化石记录，它们早在近6000万年前就已经在空中飞翔了。 早在人类踏足地球之前，蝙蝠就已经在天空飞行了。 虽然蝙蝠存在了这么久，它们却几乎没有发生什么变化。 远古化石显示，很久以前的蝙蝠和如今的蝙蝠长得非常相似。 世界上现有近1000种蝙蝠。 实际上，蝙蝠的种类比其他任何哺乳动物都要多。 这些蝙蝠分为两大类：小蝙蝠和大蝙蝠。

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 paperclip. Microbats live in a wide range of places and can be found throughout the world.

小蝙蝠大多吃昆虫，不过也有些小蝙蝠会吃小鱼、小型哺乳动物和两栖动物。 最小的小蝙蝠是大黄蜂蝙蝠，它的长度差不多和回形针一样。 小蝙蝠的栖息地十分广泛，世界各地都能见到它们的身影。

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.

大蝙蝠以水果为食。 它们生活在温暖的热带地区，那里一年四季都长着充足的水果。 最大的大蝙蝠是马来狐蝠。 它的体型很大，张开翅膀后，长度差不多和普通浴缸一样长。 虽然有些大蝙蝠个头很大，但大蝙蝠并不总是比小蝙蝠更大。

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.

蝙蝠的特征。 说到长相，蝙蝠的风评一直不太好。 实际上，有些人甚至觉得蝙蝠完全就是丑。 还有人觉得蝙蝠看起来凶狠又吓人。 如果你多了解一些蝙蝠，说不定会改变对它们的看法。 你甚至会觉得有些蝙蝠还挺可爱的。