Bats are the only mammals that can fly, as flying squirrels actually glide rather than fly. A single brown bat can catch around 1,200 mosquito-sized insects in an hour. Vampire bats don't actually suck blood - they lap it up. An anticoagulant in vampire bat saliva is being studied for use in treating cardiac patients and for the prevention of strokes. Bats can digest bananas, mangos, and berries in about 20 minutes. While the average life span of a bat varies according to species, some brown bats can live up to 30 years. Bats spend almost as much time grooming themselves as cats. They groom themselves and each other meticulously. Bats don't see very well in the dark, so they use echolocation to find their way. While flying, they send out beeps and listen for variations in the echoes that bounce back to them. They can see reasonably well during the daytime, but they don't generally travel during the day. They are believed to be nocturnal because there are fewer predators at night. Fewer than 10 people have contracted rabies from North American bats in the past 50 years. Bats make up a quarter of all mammals on the Earth. More than 50% of the bat species in the United States are either in severe decline or listed as endangered, which is attributed to deforestation, industry, pollution, and killing. While at rest, bats keep warm by folding their wings around themselves, trapping air against their bodies for insulation.
So they hover in the air until the echo comes back so they know which way to turn, up, down, to the left, to the right. My son just killed a bat on their enclosed porch. He swat it with a broom and crushed it. I told him that I didn't want to here the gory details he was about to share.
there's lots of bat's around here..old town bank upstairs full... they swarm out of old boiler stack at the school... there's a town park nearby that has big pond..they swoop there for water..
There is a fungal disease called White Nose Syndrome that is estimated to have killed millions of bats in eastern North America since it was discovered in 2006, and can kill up to 100% of bats in a colony during hibernation. The fungus was identified in a 1918 sample collected in Europe, where bats have now adapted to it.
Back in the mid 60's, my step-mom went to the basement to put some wood into the furnace and a bat flew out and into her hair. This happened just as my step-dad was getting out of the car from work. He heard her scream, rushed down into the basement, seen the bat in her hair and somehow/someway ripped the bat out of her hair and twisted it's neck, killing it. My step-mom ended up ok. Step-dad had an Over/Under (rifle/shotgun) that he would use sometimes to shoot bats that flew around barn/side yard area during the summer. Due to them following radar (?) waves, he'd use the "shotgun" part of the rifle. The shot would spread out and hit the bat/bats. In-between bats and sparrows, we'd try to get rid of as many as possible. Sparrows would crap all over our farm equipment and I'd go after them with my Daisy Pump BB Rifle.
We had lots of bats in the attic of the house I grew up in. They would swarm out of there at dusk like the Bracken Cave. I used to throw sticks and baseball gloves in the air, and the bats would zoom in on them, circling the object all the way to the ground...then they would zoom off. They would sometimes get in the house and cause chaos. When I moved to this rural area I had a dusk-to-dawn street light at my driveway. I'd sit out in the summer and watch the bats go after the bugs that the light attracted. I had mixed feelings about having that light disconnected so I could better use my telescope. I like bats.
Many years ago, my GF at the time called to say in a panicky voice that a bat had gotten into her bedroom and was just hanging on a window drape. I drove there and had her give me an old towel. I grabbed the bat with the towel and stuck it in a garbage bag.
When I was a kid and my sisters would be jittery from the latest bat intrusion, I would throw a paper airplane at them as they went down the stairs, making the "fft fft ftt" noise. Good times.
I had an up close bat incident the spring after my husband passed. I got up as usual one early morning and a bat passed me in the hallway as I was headed for the kitchen. I ran back in the bedroom, slammed the door and thought about it. I almost convinced myself I didn't see it but when I left the room it buzzed me again. Needless to say it would have been hubby's problem had he still been with me. There were neighbors I could have called but it was really early and I was reluctant to call so I looked on the Internet. I was thinking maybe there was someone who dealt with wildlife removal but instead I found DIY advice. So here you go if you should have need. Use a bucket with a lid and quietly bring the bucket up against the ceiling around the bat, the bat will let go and drop into the bucket. Then just let the bucket down a tiny bit, just enough to slide the lid over the top of the bucket. So, there I was still in my nightgown, on a step stool, trapping a bat. I held the lid tight, climbed off the stool and threw the bucket out the back door. The lid flew off and the bat flew away. I found a loose screen on the living room window. I had cut down some volunteer bushes the day before. Maybe the bat had been spending the days in those bushes and when they were gone he crawled into the house around the screen.
Here in Florida we like bats, they keep bug down. Here is a bat house at UF with hundreds of bats flying out to get 'supper'.