News tagged with bats
Scientists find a biological 'fountain of youth' in new world bat caves
Scientists from Texas are batty over a new discovery which could lead to the single most important medical breakthrough in human history -- significantly longer lifespans. The discovery, featured on the cover of the July ...
Jun 30, 2009 |
3.9 / 5 (31) |
36
Great Tit Turns Out to be a Killer
(PhysOrg.com) -- The Great Tit is an aggressive songbird found in Britain, continental Europe, parts of Northern Africa, and much of Asia. It is believed to survive mostly on seeds, nuts, fruit, insects, beetles, ...
Sep 10, 2009 |
4.7 / 5 (21) |
12
Resident bats use pitcher plant as toilet
(PhysOrg.com) -- The pitcher plants are carnivorous species that usually feed on insects and small vertebrates, but one species has been found that prefers to dine on the feces of bats.
Jan 27, 2011 |
4.9 / 5 (14) |
1
|
New research challenges evolutionary theory
(PhysOrg.com) -- New research from the University of Reading overturns conventional views on the nature of evolution, arguing that mammals did not develop into their many different forms in one early and rapid ...
Oct 20, 2011 |
3.5 / 5 (19) |
34
|
Wallabies and bats harbor 'fossil' genes from the most deadly family of human viruses
Modern marsupials may be popular animals at the zoo and in children's books, but new findings by University at Buffalo biologists reveal that they harbor a "fossil" copy of a gene that codes for filoviruses, ...
Jul 02, 2010 |
4.7 / 5 (11) |
0
|
Robo-bats with metal muscles may be next generation of remote control flyers
Tiny flying machines can be used for everything from indoor surveillance to exploring collapsed buildings, but simply making smaller versions of planes and helicopters doesn't work very well. Instead, researchers ...
Jul 07, 2009 |
4.5 / 5 (11) |
8
Eating like a bird helps forests grow
Lions, tigers and bears top the ecological pyramid -- the diagram of the food chain that every school child knows. They eat smaller animals, feeding on energy that flows up from the base where plants convert ...
Apr 05, 2010 |
4.6 / 5 (9) |
0
|
Bats rebound in NY caves first hit by white-nose
(AP) -- Researchers found substantially more bats in several caves that were the first ones struck by white-nose syndrome, giving them a glimmer of hope amid a scourge that has killed millions of bats in ...
Apr 19, 2012 |
4.5 / 5 (8) |
4
A battle of the vampires, 20 million years ago?
(PhysOrg.com) -- They are tiny, ugly, disease-carrying little blood-suckers that most people have never seen or heard of, but a new discovery in a one-of-a-kind fossil shows that “bat flies” have ...
Feb 02, 2012 |
4.7 / 5 (7) |
0
|
Slight change in wind turbine speed significantly reduces bat mortality
While wind energy has shown strong potential as a large-scale, emission-free energy source, bat and bird collisions at wind turbines result in thousands of fatalities annually. Migratory bats, such as the ...
Nov 01, 2010 |
5 / 5 (6) |
3
|
Scientists unravel the mystery of white-nose syndrome
The mysterious disease that has killed more than 90 percent of wintering bats in some caves and mines from Vermont to Virginia during the last three years has raised numerous questions about the nature of the disease and ...
Jun 03, 2009 |
4.1 / 5 (7) |
2
Rainforest plant developed sonar dish to attract pollinating bats
The researchers discovered that a rainforest vine, pollinated by bats, has evolved dish-shaped leaves with such conspicuous echoes that nectar-feeding bats can find its flowers twice as fast by echolocation. The study is ...
Jul 28, 2011 |
4.7 / 5 (6) |
4
|
Solving the mystery of the dying bats
Deep in a cave in Mifflin County, Pa., surrounded by icicles and tilted slabs of rock, DeeAnn Reeder shone her headlamp on a tiny bat.
Feb 01, 2010 |
5 / 5 (5) |
3
UT professor finds economic importance of bats in the billions
Bats in North America are under a two-pronged attack but they are not the only victim – so is the U.S. economy. Gary McCracken, head of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University ...
Mar 31, 2011 |
5 / 5 (5) |
0
|
Bats adjust their 'field-of-view'
A new study reveals that the way fruit bats use biosonar to 'see' their surroundings is significantly more advanced than first thought. The study, published September 13 in the online, open access journal ...
Sep 13, 2011 |
5 / 5 (5) |
0
|
Bat
See article
Bats are mammals in the order Chiroptera (pronounced /kaɪˈrɒptərə/). The forelimbs of bats are developed as wings, making them the only mammals naturally capable of flight (opposed to other mammals, such as flying squirrels, gliding possums and colugos, that glide only for a distance). Bats do not flap arms like birds, instead they flap spread out hands where their fingers are very long and covered with a thin membrane or patagium. Chiroptera comes from two Greek words cheir (χειρ) "hand" and pteron (πτερον) "wing."
There is an estimated total of about 1,100 species worldwide, which is about 20 percent of all classified mammal species. About 70 percent of bats are insectivores. Most of the rest are frugivores, with a few species being carnivorous. Bats are present throughout most of the world and perform a vital ecological role by pollinating flowers, and eat various plants to dispere their seeds. Many tropical plants depend for their seeds to be distributed entirely by bats.
Bats range in size from Kitti's Hog-nosed Bat measuring 29–33 mm (1.14–1.30 in) in length and 2 g (0.07 oz) in mass, to the Giant golden-crowned flying fox which has a wing span of 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) and weighs approximately 1.2 kg (3 lb).
For more information about Bat, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
