Bat Facts! /\^._.^/\

r/BatFacts • u/remotectrl • May 22 '21

Many bats have whiskers on their toes to help them find footholds in the dark.

676 Upvotes

r/BatFacts • u/remotectrl • Oct 30 '21

The Greater Naked Bat (Cheiromeles torquatus) is hairless. It has a wingspan of 65cm and forms large nursery colonies of up to 20,000 where they have twins. Unlike most bats, their echolocation is audible to humans.

639 Upvotes

r/BatFacts • u/hannahvanalphen • Oct 29 '21

Fruit bats invert to do their business. This is a behaviour they master as young pups instinctively. As you can see this young one still a bit wobbly but everyone has gotta start somewhere. Fruit bats are very clean animals and spend a large portion of time on grooming themselves!!

628 Upvotes

r/BatFacts • u/remotectrl • Jan 01 '22

Humans feel vulnerable in the darkness, but for bats the opposite is true. Bats display a preference for unilluminated water sources as drinking is a precarious task when flying.

610 Upvotes

r/BatFacts • u/remotectrl • May 03 '20

Bats get a lot of blame for zoonotic diseases, but they are not exceptional in having many pathogens. The number of notable viruses found in Chiroptera is a function of the number of bat species.

593 Upvotes

r/BatFacts • u/remotectrl • Aug 30 '17

Not all bats can see color, but none are truly blind. A few species are even known to see into the ultra-violet spectrum and many navigate by sight. Just look at the eyes on this baby fruit bat!

528 Upvotes

r/BatFacts • u/hannahvanalphen • Oct 14 '21

Little red flying foxes- a type of megabat native to Australia! They are mega pollinators, a keystone species! Aussie trees are receptive to pollination at night- birds and bees are asleep! Without FF our native forests would perish along with the animals that live within e.g koalas! No me, no tree!

491 Upvotes

r/BatFacts • u/remotectrl • Dec 02 '20

Almost all hardwood species in Queensland need Flying Foxes for pollination. Hardwood flowers are only receptive to pollination at night, so the daytime activity of birds and bees does not fertilise the flowers.

482 Upvotes

r/BatFacts • u/remotectrl • Nov 01 '20

Vampire Facts! The Hairy Legged Vampire Bat (Diphylla ecaudata) will consume roughly half its bodyweight in a night. This is about 5 teaspoons of blood, usually from a bird.

466 Upvotes

r/BatFacts • u/remotectrl • Sep 06 '20

Mother bats use a version of baby talk to communicate with their pups and encourage vocal development.

463 Upvotes

r/BatFacts • u/remotectrl • Feb 11 '21

Vampire Facts! Vampire bats (Desmodus rotundus) have complex and rich social lives. They have even been observed adopting unrelated orphans.

462 Upvotes

r/BatFacts • u/remotectrl • Feb 07 '21

Red bats (Lasiurus spp) begin mating in flight. They may finish mating on the ground.

460 Upvotes

r/BatFacts • u/remotectrl • Oct 25 '17

Bats are not rodents. They are more closely related to cats than rats.

455 Upvotes

r/BatFacts • u/hannahvanalphen • Oct 14 '21

Powerlines can be hard to see at night for megabats. If a bat flies into powerlines it will usually result in fatal electrocution. HOWEVER if it is a female bat, she could be carrying a baby who is usually wholly unaffected and a vaccinated carer can be contacted to retrieve the pup! 🦇 NSFW

454 Upvotes

r/BatFacts • u/remotectrl • Oct 08 '17

Young bats can't fly until they are 90% fully grown.

452 Upvotes

r/BatFacts • u/remotectrl • Jan 24 '21

The Rodrigues Flying Fox was once the most endangered bat with less than a hundred individuals left. A captive breeding program has increased this number to many thousand bats.

448 Upvotes

r/BatFacts • u/NaturalHabitatShorts • May 19 '22

Blood is a vampire bat’s only source of food and water. Because of that they can’t go more than 2 days without feeding.

446 Upvotes

r/BatFacts • u/PyroForestGoth • May 12 '23

: )

441 Upvotes

r/BatFacts • u/patronsaintofweed • Mar 19 '23

Bat pups are born with big feet. Their hind limbs have nearly adult size and strength. This helps them hold on to mom during flights, but they can also bite a nipple for extra security.

437 Upvotes

r/BatFacts • u/remotectrl • Nov 26 '20

Flying taking a lot of energy. Many bats consume close to their body weight in food nightly.

437 Upvotes

r/BatFacts • u/remotectrl • Jul 24 '20

Today (July 24) is National Tequila Day. Bats are the primary pollinators of many agave species. Thanks bats!

433 Upvotes

r/BatFacts • u/remotectrl • Jun 13 '20

The Kitti's Hog-nosed Bat (Craseonycteris thonglongyai) is the smallest mammal. Images of other bat pups are often circulated online claiming to be this species. This is an adult.

428 Upvotes

r/BatFacts • u/remotectrl • Sep 01 '22

Vampire bats exhibit a "college dorm room" effect where unrelated and unfamiliar individuals develop strong and long lasting relationships when thrust into a novel scenario together.

423 Upvotes

r/BatFacts • u/remotectrl • Apr 20 '20

Bat pups in some species have barbed teeth so that they can grip their mother’s nipple while she flies.

419 Upvotes

r/BatFacts • u/wawaconservation • May 08 '21

Britain's loneliest bat? For the last 16 years, every winter, a male greater mouse-eared bat has taken up residence 300 metres inside a disused railway tunnel in West Sussex. The greater mouse-eared bat has been all but extinct in this country for decades. This is the only remaining that we know of.

418 Upvotes