On moonless nights in a tropical forest, bats slice through the inky darkness, snatching up insects resting silently on leaves—a seemingly impossible feat. New experiments at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute ...
Plants & Animals
Aug 01, 2019
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Some 18 million years ago, an ancestor of mouse-eared bats "stole" genetic material from an ancient virus related to Ebola.
Cell & Microbiology
Jul 24, 2018
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(Phys.org)—A pair of researchers, one with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the other the University of Maryland, has found evidence that suggests vampire bats regurgitate blood into the mouths of others ...
In the 65-million-year-old arms race between bats and moths, some moth species rub their genitals to jam the calls of bats. Radar jamming is commonly used in human warfare, allowing pilots to render themselves invisible. ...
Plants & Animals
May 05, 2015
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(Phys.org)—A team of researches with members from several institutions in the U.S. has found that the long tails sported by the luna moth exist as a means to foil attacks by bats. In their paper published in Proceedings ...
Bats with skulls and teeth adapted to a wide range of diets are helping scientists understand how major groups of mammals first evolved.
Plants & Animals
Aug 14, 2019
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Bats are creatures of the night and are accustomed to complete darkness. They harness their hypersensitive hearing to feed, to fend off prey and to mate.
Plants & Animals
Jun 27, 2019
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It is widely accepted that probiotic bacteria are beneficial to human health, but what if they could also be used to reduce wildlife disease and conserve biodiversity?
Plants & Animals
Jun 27, 2019
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Scientists have identified genes that may give long-lived bat species their extraordinary lifespans and cancer resistance compared to other animals.
Ecology
Jun 12, 2019
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Anybody who has been passed by an ambulance at high speed has experienced a physical effect called the Doppler shift: As the ambulance moves toward the listener, its motion compresses the siren's sound waves and raises the ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 05, 2019
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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).
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
