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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188
(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
11
1226
(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 ...
Migrating birds 'share the pain' of the arduous task of leading a v-formation, so that they can then take turns saving energy by following in another bird's wake, a new study shows.
Evolution
Feb 02, 2015
1
1206
Pilots are trained to guard against vertigo: a sudden loss of the sense of vertical direction that renders them unable to tell "up" from "down" and sometimes even leads to crashes. Coming up out of a subway station can produce ...
Plants & Animals
Dec 03, 2014
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0
University of Maryland researchers analyzed an evolutionary tree reconstructed from the DNA of a majority of known bat species and found four bat lineages that exhibit extreme longevity. They also identified, for the first ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 10, 2019
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1086
Not only do intact ecosystems delight the eye of nature lovers, they also help people financially. However, it is difficult to put an exact figure on how much money they actually generate in specific cases. For the first ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 02, 2019
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455
An international research team led by Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore, has identified molecular and genetic mechanisms that allow bats to stay healthy while hosting viruses that kill other animals, according to a new study ...
Cell & Microbiology
Feb 26, 2019
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623
Researchers from Singapore's Duke-NUS Medical School, in collaboration with scientists in China, have identified and characterised a new genus of filovirus from a Rousettus bat in China. Their findings were published in the ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jan 07, 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
