Fun Bat Facts

Bats are fascinating animals and we love discovering new fun bat facts. I realize we at Get Bats Out may be a little more fanatical than most. I have always stood firm that it takes a special kind of person to do humane bat removal.

The Organization for Bat Conservation is a great organization dedicated to saving bats and educating people on all of the benefits bats provide.

Fun Bat Facts

I love the video below because it has so many fun bat facts in it, but if you have some extra time, go to their YouTube page and check out the video tour of their “Bat Zone”. It is a pretty cool place!

If you don’t have time to watch this quick 7 and a half minute video, here are the fun bat facts cliff notes:

• Bats are the only flying mammal. Flying Squirrels only glide.
• Bats are their own scientific order, Chiroptera, which means hand wing.
• There are 1,300 different kinds of bats in the world. Making up about 1/4 of all mammal species.
• Fruit bats around the world are important seed dispersers in the tropical rainforests. They are considered a “keystone species”. Meaning that without them, many other plants and species in the same ecosystem would be adversely affected.
• Bats have a diverse diet.
• Most bats are colonial. Some bats are solitary, living by themselves, mainly in live trees.
• The largest bat in the world is the Malayan Flying Fox. It weighs about 2 pounds and has a wing span of up to 6 feet!
• The smallest bat in the world is the Kitti’s Hog-nosed Bat, sometimes called the Bumblebee Bat. It lives in Thailand, weighs only 2 grams (about the same as a dime!) and has a 6 inch wing span.

• There are 3 species of vampire bats and they are only found in Mexico, Central America, and South America. They are very small bats and typically only drink 1 tablespoon of blood each feeding. They prey mostly on cows. They are very social bats that have been seen feeding other bats that couldn’t care for themselves. Even to their own detriment.
• Bats have been detected flying over 50 MPH. Some have even been detected flying over 3,000 feet above ground in search of insects.
• Most bats have one pup a year. Some commonly have twins. A few bats have been known to have 3, 4,or 5 pups a year. Tropical fruit bats usually have a baby twice a year.
• The oldest bat fossil ever found was in Wyoming and is estimated to be 52 million years old.
• Most bats live 10 to 20 years. The oldest known bat lived to be 41 years old.
• Hibernation allows bats to avoid freezing temperatures. During hibernation, bats heart beats drop to just 11 beats a minute compared to their normal heart rate of over 1,000 beats a minute.
• Bats form the largest congregation of mammals in the world.
• Bats cannot stand upright due to a very small pelvic girdle. They hang upside down nearly all the time. Blood doesn’t rush to their heads because they don’t weigh enough for gravity to affect their circulation.
• Very few wild bats test positive for rabies. Over the last 50 years, only 40 people have gotten rabies from a wild bat. Scientific studies have shown that less than 1% of wild bats have rabies.
• A mother Mexican Freetail Bat can find her own baby even in a crowd of millions of other babies.
• Vampire bats adopt orphans.
• Honduran White Bats chew leaves and make “tents” to protect their colonies from rain and predators like monkeys.

• About half of all the bat species in the world are either threatened or endangered. The main factors for this are habitat destruction, pollution, and human persecution.
• Many bats live in human buildings because their natural habitat is no longer available.

We’re Fascinated, Not Delusional

We love bats at Get Bats Out, but that doesn’t mean that we expect you to as well. We realize many people are very afraid of bats. We also realize most people do not want to live with bats in their home or office.

If you have a suspected bat infestation, please give us a call. Dealing with the situation quickly and humanely is our specialty. If you would like us to call you, just fill out the form below.

Your local bat removal experts,

Michael Koski