"Holy Chiroptera, Batman!", exclaims Robin as they leap into the 'Bat-mobile'. One of Americas most famous characters portrays a strong, wise, helpful Bat-man. We use bats in many ways, some ways many of us do not even notice. For example, Bacardi Rum, a popular alcoholic beverage, has a bat on its label! Bacardi Imports supports bat conservation highly. There are many misconceptions about these gentle, intelligent mammals, many people portray bats as villains (Dracula), but many of us portray them as heroes (Batman). I hope after reading this you will help spread the message about how great bats are, and how they are really the 'heroes'.

Bats are the only mammals that can fly. Right now the image of the flying squirrel may be passing through your mind, but they do not really fly, they only glide. Bats are a member of the mammalian order Chiroptera, meaning "hand-wing". Bones in a bats wing are the same as a humans arm and hand, but the bats fingers are very elongated and are connected by a double membrane of skin which forms the wing. The flying foxes bat of the Old World tropics has a wing-span of up to six feet and can weigh 1.5 kg! The smallest bat is the Bumble Bee bat of Thailand and weighs less than a penny.

Just like humans, there are many different varieties of bats. Some bats feed mainly on insects, others eat fish, or fruits, nectar and pollen, some bats feed on blood, and some bats eat other bats. Some bats are more social, others are more solitary. There are bats with short, round faces, some with long, narrow faces, some are reddish-colored, some are brown or black or even golden-colored. We usually always associate bats with caves, but different species of bats require different roosting habitats. Some bats roost in caves, some in trees, attics, bat boxes, tree cavities, rock crevices, mines, anywhere they can obtain protective cover.

When we are taught about bats we are always taught about their use of echolocation (bisonar). Echolocation is a method of orientation which uses pulses of sound and their echoes. It is used to find roosting sites and for detecting prey. But, not all bats use echolocation! The megachiropterons (except for the Egyptian Fruit bat and the Dog-Faced bats) do not use echolocation. But, all of the species of microchiroptera are presumed to echolocate. Other species of animals use echolocation like the porpoises, dolphins, toothed whales, the oilbirds of South America, the whippoorwills, swifts, and even some species of shrews!

Bats use other senses like hearing, which is central to echolocation. Sounds are used by bats for communication purposes like attracting mates or calling for their young. Some bats can see very well, and some cannot. Contrary to popular belief ("Blind as a bat"), there are no species of blind bats. Different species of bats have different variances in sight, and only the megachiropteras can see color. Another sense they use is smell. Bats smell through their nostrils, just as humans do. Fruit-eating, nectar and pollen-eating bats rely heavily on their sense of smell. A couple of species of fruit-eating bats in West Africa only eat ripe figs, and are often seen hovering in front of the figs presumably using their sense of smell to identify the ripe ones.

There are a lot of myths and misconceptions surrounding bats. A lot of these fears probably stemmed from a bats facial expressions like when they bare their teeth when they are scarred and trying to look threatening. Other problems are the movies like Dracula that portray bats as evil or portray that all bats feed on blood (only the three species of Vampire bats of South and Central America feed on blood). Rabies has also been a big factor in a bats 'bad rap'. Bats can contract rabies just as you or I or other animals can, however, most bats are not rabid as rumor has it. Dr. Merlin Tuttle, a renowned expert in bats, notes, "less than half of one percent of bats contract rabies, a frequency no higher than seen in many other animals." He also mentions that most statistics about rabid bats are due to sampling biases. "Most labs test only bats that are submitted because they are rabies-suspect. An extreme case involved a claim that 50% of a state's bats were rabid because one of only two bats examined tested positive." With all of this in mind, though, it is still not safe to handle any wildlife. If you have concerns about a particular animal, contact a professional before attempting to handle the animal.

Many species of bats are on the decline (3 species in North Carolina alone) due to the image many people still have of them. They are also on the decline due to habitat loss, pesticide poisoning, human recreations such as caving, human consumption (some humans consider bats a delicacy), scientific research, and specimen collection for museums and such. Some species of bats require specific roosting and hibernating conditions, and with the loss of these conditions will be the loss of that species.

It is very important that we help bat conservationist. Bats are good indicators to our environmental quality. The insectivorous bats can catch up to 600 mosquitoes in one hour! Imagine what a colony of bats could eat! Bats can help our crops by preying on crop-eating insects. Many fruit and nectar-eating bats are considered 'keystone' species because their survival depends on the survival of many plants and ecosystems (like rainforests), and vice-versa! For example, the baobab tree of Africa relies on bats to pollinate them. And other bats are seed dispersers for many other types of plants. Dr. Tuttle points out that "more than 300 plant species in the Old World tropics alone rely on the pollinating and seed dispersal services of bats, and additional bat-plant relationships are constantly being discovered."

You can help conserve bats by putting out bat boxes, recycling and not destroying habitats (you can remodel the old and not destroy to build new), and you can help support organizations such as Bat Conservation International, Inc. 512-327-9721, and The Organization for Bat Conservation  517-655-9200, or by adopting a bat at the WNC Nature Center  828-298-5600.

"Part of conserving is understanding and caring."