Bats belong in the order Chiroptera. There are approximately 977 species of bats in the world living in almost all tropical and temperate regions. There are several mammals that reside in trees gliding from tree to tree, but bats are the only mammals capable of full flight similar to bird flight. The scientific name Chiroptera means ‘hand wing’. Bats have wings made of membranes of skin that stretches between their arms and legs.
Bats eat insects, fruit, blood, fish and small mammals and have been called nature’s insect control. The world’s largest bat is the Australian flying fox, which has a wingspan of 1.5 meters. The current taxonomy of bats:
- Kingdom: Animalia
- Phylum: Chordata
- Class: Mammalia
- Order: Chiroptera
- Family, Genus and Species would of course depend on the bat.
Blind as a Bat – How Bats Use Echolocation to Navigate
Bats are mostly nocturnal or active at twilight and they navigate by echolocation. This allows bats to fly in complete darkness and “see” by using sound. Research on some common North American bats from the family Vespertilionidae show that when in flight, bats emit 5-10 millisecond pulses in a narrow beam from their mouths or noses.
The frequency is ultrasonic to human ears but for bats it allows for accurate navigation and prey capture. The short pulses bats emit get faster as they approach prey, however the pulses are spread out so that the echo of a pulse is heard by the bat before it emits the next pulse. Increasing the pulse frequency gives the bat more information about an object. Scientists believe bats produce a mental image of their surroundings from their echoes.
Not all bats use echolocation to navigate. Around 170 species of bat in suborder Megachiroptera rely on their large eyes and olfactory (smell) cues to find food and to navigate.
Male Bats Sing Love Songs
Recent studies have shown that male free-tailed bats can sing intricate love songs to attract females. The bats produce a syntax and order of syllables more similar to a bird song than any other mammal’s song. The bat emits a series of chirps, buzzes or trills which are rare sounds in mammals. Only the whale song is more complex than the free-tailed bat’s song. Bats establish territories during mating season, which they defend aggressively. They use the love songs to woo female bats and deter rival males.
Resource and further reading:
For more information visit the BBC Earth News web page on Intricate bat ‘love songs’ decoded.
Hickman, Roberts, Larson & I’Anson, 2004, ‘Mammals’ in Integrated Principles of Zoology, 12th edition, ed. McGraw Hill, New York, chapter 28.
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