Random Reasons Why Bats Are Actually Totally Badass (17 items)

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  (#1) They Are The Only Mammals That Fly

  You may have heard of flying squirrels, sugar gliders, or maybe even the colugo before - they're all referred to as flying mammals. This is a misnomer, as all of those animals glide rather than actually fly. The only flying mammal in the world is the bat. Like birds, they use their wings to push air down and their body up, and are thereby able to take to the air.

  Bats are agile, too. They can turn, rise in altitude, and even hover briefly in midair. They use that flying ability to catch prey, escape predators, and move around freely.
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  (#2) Their Wings Are Huge Fingertips

  You might think that bats and birds have similar anatomy, since they both fly, but their wings are very different. Bats have something like a hand inside their wings, including a thumb they can use for clinging and holding.

  But the main difference between bat and bird wings has to do with sensitivity. The skin that covers bats' wings features touch censors, much like those found on a human fingertip. Bats' wings, however, are also covered with tiny hairs that can sense changes in airflow and air pressure. Their wings' composition allows bats to dive, bank, and rise more easily. 
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  (#3) They Can Eat A Thousand Mosquitos In An Hour

  Bats can be broken into two groups: those that eat insects or meat, and those that eat fruit, nectar, and plants. One such insect-eating bat is the little brown bat, which lives all over North America. These creatures love to eat mosquitos, and are expert hunters. In a single hour, they can grab and consume a thousand mosquitos.
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  (#4) They Make Up One Fifth Of All Mammals

  Bats are incredibly prolific. There are over 1,200 different species of bats living on every continent except for Antarctica, and certain areas have a higher bat population than human population. Bat species make up one fifth of all known mammal species, and that number could only go up as new bats are discovered.

  However, out of those over 1,200 species of bats, 26 are considered critically endangered, 51 are endangered, and 954 are considered vulnerable. Humans continue to encroach on bats' habitats, and their slow reproductive cycles mean they can't make up that population depletion.
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  (#5) Their Wingspans Can Stretch Five Feet

  Bats come in all shapes and sizes. Larger species are called "Megabats," and they're sizeable. The world's largest bat is the giant golden-crowned flying fox, and it has a wingspan of five feet. This bat is a gentle giant - it typically eats fruit.
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  (#6) They Have Control Over Their Reproductive Systems

  Female bats have a surprising amount of control over their reproductive organs. Most bats are only able to have up to one baby per year. Female bats will sometimes delay their pregnancy during hibernation, saving the dormant sperm inside their bodies until they are ready to gestate. 

  Once a number of female bats are pregnant, they form a maternity colony. The bats have their young all at once, and take care of them together. It's because of this ability to delay or refuse pregnancy that bats are one of the world's slowest reproducing mammals.
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  (#7) They Help Plants Grow

  Bats who drink nectar pollinate plants and help future fruit grow, and their poop helps nourish the soil. But bats' relationship with plants goes even farther than that. When a bat eats fruit, it ingests the seeds, which it then carries to new areas. When the bat passes the seed, the plant population spreads. In fact, certain fruit seeds will not grow unless they have been passed through the gut of a bat.
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  (#8) They Cuddle While Sleeping

  It can get pretty cold in caves at night, and bats don't sleep in nests. They simply hang upside-down, near the rock. To ward off the chill, some bats have developed a technique for keeping each other warm: cuddling. Little brown bats refuse to sleep alone, and will sometimes cuddle up in a massive heap as they drift off.
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  (#9) They Could Be Furthering Cardiac Medicine

  Vampire bats are offering medical experts a new window into research on bleeding, the heart, and strokes. Doctors have found that vampire bat saliva breaks up clots, because bats need the blood to flow in order to drink it. The enzyme that does this, called desmoteplase, may be able to break up clots in the brain, heart, and other parts of the human body.
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  (#10) They Hunt "Big" Game

  Most bats aren't carnivorous, but some types hunt down and eat meat, like fish, crustaceans, frogs, and even rodents. One such bat, the Mexican fishing bat, will even dive towards the water and snag fish. Its powerful wings let it carry its lunch to a quiet place to enjoy.
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  (#11) They Can Weigh Less Than A Penny

  Some bats are absurdly small. The bumblebee bat, which is also known as Kitti's hog-nosed bat, is the world's smallest bat, and also the world's smallest mammal by skull size. This insect-eater can hover just like a bee.

  Just how small do these guys get? The bat is only about an inch in length, so it could easily cling to one of your fingers. It also wouldn't weigh you down too much, considering it weights just two grams. For comparison, a penny weighs 2.5 grams.
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  (#12) They Are Incredibly Clean

  Bats are often thought of as filthy carriers of disease. That's far from the truth - in reality, a bat is no more dirty than the average cat. Like cats, bats lick themselves clean. They are so thorough that they'll even wash behind own ears.

  Bats can carry diseases such as rabies. However, less than a half percent of bats end up with rabies. Humans are far more likely to contract rabies through dogs.
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  (#13) They Have Insane Metabolisms

  Bats have lightning-quick metabolisms. Fruit bats can digest and metabolize fruits like mangos and bananas in under twenty minutes. Vampire bats consume twice their weight per day to keep up with their metabolism. Insect eating bats eat thousands of insects in a night, the equivalent of their own body weight.
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  (#14) They Can Get Around In Total Darkness

  It's a common misconception that bats are blind or have poor sight. In truth, bats have excellent vision, but it's not their most useful sense. Instead, bats rely on echolocation, which ensures they can move around even when they can't see anything at all.

  To use this unique ability, the bat sends out a signal in the form of a sound wave from either its mouth or nose. The echo then bounces off objects and comes back to the bat's ears. Now that the bat can "see" obstacles, it can navigate accordingly. Using echolocation, the bat can detect objects as small as a single hair.
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  (#15) Their Poop Makes Amazing Fertilizer

  Farmers frequently use dung from chickens, cows, or other animals to encourage their crops to grow. Bat poop, though, might be the best fertilizer of all. Bat guano improves soil texture, and has microbes that help encourage plant growth. It also contains large volumes of nitrogen, which promotes rapid, steady growth in plants.
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  (#16) They Have A Special Way Of Drinking Water

  Bats have a pretty amazing method of drinking water. A bat may use echolocation to sense a large, flat, reflective surface (namely, water) and decide to take a drink. It will dive low over the water's surface, and open its jaw wide. Then, it will take a single mouthful of water before turning sharply back upwards without crashing into the water's surface.

  Staying hydrated can be dangerous: bats have to avoid landing face-first on a metallic object they mistake for a pond, or splashing into the water.
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  (#17) They'll Probably Outlive Your Pet

  Most small mammals have fairly short lifespans of a few years, or maybe a decade if they're lucky. Bats, however, live for an average of twenty years, and some species live even longer. The little brown bat, for instance, has the longest lifespan among bats - thirty years or more.

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