By therandomsci / July 12, 2020
Bat is the only mammal that can fly. There is a common misconception about the bat that they are blood-sucking animal but only 3 species sucks the blood out of 1300 species. Without bat crops and fruits would not be possible. Because they majorly disperse seeds. They eat loads of harmful insects and help pollinate plants.
Bats prefer to live in warm areas close to equators, and they can be found in rain forests, mountains, farmland, woods, and cities. They don’t have a lot of fat to keep them warm. Some bats migrate to warmer areas, while others go into a short-term form of hibernation called torpor. During torpor, a bat reduces its metabolic rate, lowers its body temperature, and slows its breathing and heart rates. Bats sleep during the day and are active at night.
Bats use echolocation to “see” insects and other objects in the dark. They make high-frequency sounds then analyze the location of objects around them by perceiving how the sound bounces off the object. Echolocation allows the bats to tell how big and how far away an object is.
Vampire bats drink blood, mainly from cattle and deer, which they find using specialized heat-detecting sensors near their noses. And they don’t suck the blood as the legends suggest. They make a V-shaped cut and then lick up the blood. They can lick blood up to 30 min. Blood does not coagulate because bat saliva has an anticoagulant called Draculin.
Bats are recognized by many as flying disease carriers and there’s a good reason for that. In 2013, Live Science reported that bats act as reservoirs for more than 60 different viruses that can infect humans. And in 2017, a study published in the journal Nature found that bats carry significantly more viruses than any other mammal species on the planet. But there’s strong evidence to suggest it’s because bats are relatively long-lived creatures, and they live in such tight quarters with one another. Their habitats and food sources also tend to overlap with humans, making contact more likely.
Getting rid of bats is not the way to avoid disease. Research has shown that killing bats doesn’t reduce disease transmission but instead can increase the number of susceptible bats and enhance disease transmission.
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