A bit about bats and their benefits
- John Lorson: The Rail Trail Naturalist
- August 29, 2024
- 510
Each spring, typically during the first few weeks of April, I say hello to an old friend that has just returned from a long winter’s nap somewhere in a cave, mine, rock crevice or similar cool, dark and humid place. Flying at what seems like a surprisingly low speed for all the flapping of wings taking place, my longtime pal, a big brown bat dives and whirls as if to say hello as he grabs at unseen prey with his tiny, toothy jaws.
The idea that the bats I see in my neighborhood from one year to the next are the very same individuals is no stretch at all. Bats have an amazingly long lifespan for small mammals. While a rodent in the same weight class might be lucky to live a year, a big brown bat in similar surroundings may live up to 20 years.
A big factor in the bat’s longevity comes from its inherent place in the food web. Rodents in the same weight class are food for nearly every predator in the land. Bats have few enemies, probably owing to the fact that they are typically active only from dusk to dawn and are able to stay high and away from trouble. There also are very few competitors for their primary source of food — night-flying insects.
Of the nearly 1,400 species of bats in the world, 70% feed only on insects. Others may feed on fruit, nectar, small amphibians, reptiles and, yes, even blood. The three species of vampire bats — all of which live below the border in Mexico, Central and South America — inspire a whole lot of bad PR for the rest of the Order Chiroptera (Latin for wing hand) to which all bats belong. Feeding innocuously on the blood of cows and other large mammals, they are often miscast as vicious demons.
Our overarching vision of bats should focus on where we would be without them. My bat buddy is capable of scooping up a thousand insects per night. If you extrapolate that number across all the bats in the colony of 15-20 million that roost in Texas’ Bracken Cave complex, the largest concentration of mammals in the world, you’ll end up with around 400,000 pounds of insects per night.
The Mexican free-tailed bats of Bracken Cave also clock in as the fastest mammals on Earth, hitting speeds of nearly 100 mph as they spread out over a 30-mile radius, sometimes reaching a height of up to 10,000 feet.
My little neighborhood friend sticks much closer to the ground and tends to skirt the edges of the trees at a considerably more leisurely pace. At this time of year, late August through October when the insect population dwindles and Ohio’s bats either migrate south to keep feeding or move toward hibernation in one of those cool, safe spots, my bat is accompanied by its young of the year. Typically, a single pup is born in late spring and is nursed for four weeks or so before fledging into the night sky to learn the neighborhood and hopefully stick around. There seem to be plenty of mosquitoes around here to keep them happy.
If you have comments on this column or questions about the natural world, write The Rail Trail Naturalist, P.O. Box 170, Fredericksburg, OH 44627, or email jlorson@alonovus.com. You also can follow along on Instagram @railtrailnaturalist.