What do bats eat and where do they live?

Bats are the only mammals that can fly. The leathery membranes between their long fingers form wings. The surface of the wings is covered with fur fibers. Body length from 3 to 40 centimeters, wingspan from 18 to 150 centimeters, weight from 4 to 900 grams.

Throughout the history of our planet, only three groups of animals took to the air. In the past these were pterosaur lizards; nowadays insects and birds fly. Mammals, although there are glider pilots and parachutists among them, did not really learn to fly and remained on the ground. All except the animals of one order, which is called the order Chiroptera....

It is usually customary to call all bats bats. But from a scientific point of view, such an association is incorrect. It is no coincidence that the order of bats is divided into two suborders - fruit bats and bats. There are approximately 800 species of bats. And the rest (about 150 species) are fruit bats. Although they have wings, although they are part of the order Chiroptera, they are not bats. (The largest fruit bats are called flying foxes and flying dogs, although, of course, they have nothing to do with real foxes and dogs.)

Bats of the Desmodidae family can not only fly, but also run quickly on the ground. A running Desmod in the dark resembles a frog or a giant spider.

Almost all bats are nocturnal: they sleep during the day and hunt at night. Most species feed on insects. The largest species, fruit bats, eat fruit. Leaf-noses of tropical America have adapted to feeding on juicy fruits and flower nectar. Desmodidae, closely related to leaf-noses, have adapted to feeding on the blood of higher vertebrates. They attack some birds, wild and domestic mammals, and sometimes even sleeping people. Desmodidae are the only order of bats that feed on blood; all other orders have nothing to do with bloodsuckers. Moths and harelips feed almost exclusively on small fish and aquatic invertebrates. Some bats can snatch fish out of the water with their paws.

They live in all countries of the world, with the exception of the Arctic and Antarctica. Bats themselves do not build shelters (such as burrows or nests). They settle in natural shelters or those built by other animals and humans. The various refuges of bats can be divided into the following groups: caves (natural) and cave-like underground structures (for example, mines); cavities under the domes of mausoleums, churches and cathedrals; shelters directly related to human habitation (attics, cavities under eaves, behind cladding, shutters, platbands); hollow trees and random shelters. Small concentrations or individual animals were found, for example, in the burrows of shore swallows, in woodpiles of firewood, and in haystacks. Herding (formation of colonies) is characteristic of most species. One colony can have from two or three individuals to several million animals living in one shelter. The desire to unite with each other, the herd instinct in bats is so highly developed that sometimes it deprives them of freedom or life. Bats sleep, hanging upside down, wrapped in their wings, like in a cloak. And representatives of the bulldog family are curious because, when resting, they use special claws to stuff their wings into special leathery pockets. In winter, bats hibernate.

Enemies of insectivorous bats, fortunately, are few in number. Owls and owls attack flying animals, however, even among owls they are only accidental prey, an addition to their main food.

Only desmods (vampires) of South America, which feed on the blood of vertebrates and sometimes humans, are considered harmful. The main harm caused by them is associated not so much with blood loss, but with the transmission of the rabies virus and pathogenic microbes by desmodes.

Plucked fruits are often eaten by leaf-noses not at the place where they grow, but are transferred to other places convenient for the animals. Small seeds of many fruits that pass through the digestive tract of leaf-noses do not lose their ability to germinate. Therefore, large leaf-nosed insects are regarded more as distributors of tree species. Long-tongued leaf-noses help pollinate plants. In some species of tropical trees, pollination occurs only with the participation of leaf-bearing insects. The vast majority of bats bring only benefits, destroying many harmful insects. Large bats (leather bats) eat harmful moths and beetles, and small bats, bats, long-eared bats and long-winged bats destroy many small dipterans, including mosquitoes (carriers of malaria) and mosquitoes. Bat droppings provide high quality fertilizer. In terms of nitrogen and phosphorus content, it is many times higher than other natural fertilizers. Bats are of significant interest as irreplaceable objects for solving a number of general biological and technical problems. Lowering body temperature is now used to treat some human diseases. The mechanics of bat flight have long attracted the attention of non-motorized aircraft designers. In the first models, the wings were made of solid panels, structurally similar to the wings of bats. Many institutes and laboratories in different countries are engaged in a detailed study of echolocation, which is of not only theoretical but also great practical interest.

Sixth Sense

In flight, bats produce very high-frequency sounds called ultrasound. The sensitive ears of bats pick up sound reflected by surrounding objects, which is why the animals do not encounter obstacles even in complete darkness. Ultrasound is reflected not only by objects, but also by nearby animals. This is how bats find their food. This mechanism is called echolocation. The echolocation mechanism in bats has reached very high perfection. We cannot even imagine the range of sounds perceived by these animals. They perceive not only the ultrasonic signal coming from another source, but also the reflection (echo) of their own signal. This is the first and main condition for the phenomenon of echolocation. They distinguish the reflection of “their” signal from a mixture of many other sound and ultrasonic waves. By the speed of signal return (echo), bats determine the distance to an object (not only to a cave wall or tree trunk, but also to such small creatures as a flying Drosophila fly). By the reflection of the ultrasonic pulse, the animal accurately determines the shape and size of the object. In this sense, he “sees” objects with his perceptive (auditory) apparatus with no less accuracy than we perceive them with our organs of vision. Using ultrasound, bats “feel” their surroundings and fill the surrounding space, reduced by darkness, to the nearest objects visible to the eye. In the larynx of a bat, the vocal cords are stretched in the form of peculiar strings, which, vibrating, produce sound. The larynx, in its structure, resembles an ordinary whistle. The air exhaled from the lungs rushes through it like a whirlwind, creating a “whistle” of a very high frequency. The bat echolocator is a very accurate navigation “device”: it is able to take direction even of a microscopically small object - with a diameter of only 0.1 millimeter!