The black bat has long been one of the most mystical animals on our planet, and for many millennia it has instilled incredible horror in the hearts of people, being almost the main hero of stories about vampires and all evil spirits.

In fact, these are rather harmless little animals (only three species drink the blood, and then mostly animals), which themselves often become victims birds of prey, martens, snakes. Yes, and people often eat them.

Bats are mammals that belong to the order Chiroptera, whose representatives are able to fly. At the same time, the flight of a bat is so specific that it is impossible to confuse its movement with the flight of other representatives of the animal world: with their thin and large wings resembling parachutes, they seem to constantly repel themselves from air masses(The name of this type of movement is “propulsion”).

The order Chiroptera includes 1200 species (forty of them live on the territory of Russia) and it includes two suborders: one family - fruit bats, seventeen - bats. Their number is so great that it makes up 20% of the total number of all species of mammals on the planet.

Bats live on all continents of the world except Antarctica. Also, you will not see them in the tundra zone and the polar regions. Most species prefer to live in the tropics, although you can meet representatives of the detachment in middle lane. For example, if in temperate latitudes the population density of animals ranges from 50 to 100 per km2, in Central Asia these figures reach thousands. On many islands in the ocean, bats are the only land mammals, since only they are able to easily overcome long distances over the sea.

Description

Depending on the species, the body length ranges from 35 mm to 14 cm, the head has a wide mouth slit, small eyes and large ears, each species has a different description, which, like the wings, are covered with a large number of vibrissae.

The eyesight and sense of smell in bats is extremely weak, so they are guided exclusively by sound, and hearing in most species is excellent: the audibility range is up to 190 thousand Hz. They also successfully use echolocation, capturing ultrasonic signals reflected from certain objects.

The main feature of bats is their limbs turned into wings, the thin bones of which are ideal for flight.

The animals have strongly elongated toes of the front paws (except for the first), which, together with the legs and long forearm, are the frame for the elastic, covered with a few hairs, membrane that forms the wing (it is interesting that it is completely penetrated by blood vessels, nerves and muscle fibers). On the heel of the animal there is a bone, a spur, which supports the rear edge of the membrane.

Whereas the muscles in birds that are responsible for the movement of the wings are connected to the sternum, in bats the muscles work differently. The wing is raised by several small muscles, and lowered by three muscles, with only one of them attached to the sternum.

Thus, with the movements of the fingers, arms, legs, forearm, bats can perfectly maneuver, so the flight of a bat, according to the description, is distinguished by a variety of styles. They can take off not only from high points (for example, from the ceiling of a cave), but also from the earth and even the water surface.

An interesting fact is that during the flight, bats constantly scream, emitting ultrasonic signals through their mouth or nose. This helps them catch the echo that bounces off various objects and makes it possible, if necessary, to correct the flight (bypass the obstacle, find food).

Differences between bats and fruit bats

Bats differ from fruit bats primarily in a different structure. aircraft: in fruit bats, it is less developed - with wide wings, a single shoulder joint. They differ in external description:

  • They have a shorter muzzle;
  • The outer ears of fruit bats form a closed ring around the ear opening;
  • Bats do not have a claw on the second toe of their front paws;
  • Bats do not have down: they are either completely bald or covered only with rod hair;
  • The length of bats generally does not exceed 14 cm (bats have species that reach 55 cm). The largest bat in the world, the South American large false vampire (large leaf bat), has a length of 13.5 cm, and the size of the wings is 91 cm. Interestingly, the size of one of the smallest representatives of the species (white bat) ranges from 37 to 47 mm.


Way of life

Despite the fact that the order Chiroptera consists of huge amount species that live in different natural conditions their way of life differs little from each other.

Bats live in flocks: in places where they settled on one square kilometer, accounts for from fifty to a hundred flying animals. They lead a nocturnal lifestyle, because it is during this period that it is easier for them to get their own food and hide from enemies, they sleep during the day, hanging upside down. Relatives communicate with each other using both ultrasonic and ordinary sounds.

In addition, if bats live in temperate latitudes, in cold period years, some species fall into long hibernation (for example, the bat). Before falling into a stupor, the animals, hanging upside down, wrap themselves in their wings, as if in a cloak, and closely press against each other to reduce heat loss.

As a result, the metabolic rate and breathing intensity decrease, the heart begins to beat less often, and the body temperature drops to zero degrees. The animals wake up no earlier than the heat comes (in some cases they are able to sleep for up to seven months).

True, not all inhabitants of cold latitudes fall into hibernation: some of them migrate far to the south, while interesting fact is that winged animals, like birds, fly in constant routes, fly away at the same time, and always fly home to breed.

reproduction

Despite the fact that bats do not live long, on average about five years, the ability to reproduce offspring comes late, at the age of two years, the pregnancy lasts 16 weeks, and the female gives birth to only one baby.

It has to do with the way they live. A pregnant female needs to continue active flights in search of food, and the baby is born rather big: its size is 25% of the mother's body. Having been born, at first, until he learns to fly, he stays on his mother's back, and she has to carry her baby during the flight.

Another interesting fact is that chiropterans of temperate latitudes give birth once a year, mainly in late spring/early summer: at this time, their food, insects, appear in plentiful quantities. At the same time, in tropical latitudes, where food is constantly available, bats breed two, and some species even three times a year.

During childbirth, females bend the interfemoral membrane in such a way that a kind of cradle is obtained into which the baby that has been born rolls out (this is especially true for species that give birth upside down, for example, earflaps).

Despite the large size, the cub is born naked, blind, without hair, the mouth resembles a narrow slit, the ears look like a crumpled piece of paper. At the same time, his paws and thumbs are very large and are already equipped with claws, with which he clings to his mother's hair with a death grip. The remaining fingers, between which the membrane is located, are still undeveloped. But, such a disproportion does not last long: the baby grows up quickly, and his body soon acquires the desired shape, and the wings grow (young animals begin their first flights at the age of 3 to 6 weeks).

Nutrition

The question of what bats eat has been worrying the minds of a huge number of people for more than one millennium, and many are convinced that bats feed only on human blood.

In fact, everything is not so scary: only three species of mammals feed on blood, and even those are found in southern Africa and the South American continent. Vampire bats feed mainly on the blood of animals and rarely attack people: having made an incision in the skin with sharp teeth, they eagerly drink blood (do not suck), which flows without stopping, since their saliva contains a component that prevents blood from clotting. Despite the fact that the bites are painless, they are dangerous because the animals are carriers of rabies.


The rest of the bats are safe for humans and even beneficial, since most of them are insectivorous. For an hour of hunting, one animal is able to eat about two hundred mosquitoes. More large species, for example, the largest bat in the world, a false vampire, hunts for frogs, small birds, lizards. Some species eat fish, and among them there are those that prey on relatives that belong to other species.

An equally interesting fact is that among bats there are also vegetarians who feed exclusively on flower nectar, berries, fruits, pollen, and nuts. Animals that prefer the nectar of flowers not only feed on them, but also pollinate them (the length of the tongue of these creatures is ¼ of the body length).

Relationships with people

Many people have a negative attitude towards bats: not really knowing what bats eat, and having heard a variety of stories about their bloodthirstiness, they are afraid of them and kill them at every opportunity, not even knowing that the benefits of bats both for nature and for human is incredibly high.

For example, in countries that are located in temperate latitudes, only species that feed exclusively on insects live, bringing considerable benefits. According to scientists, the growth of forests in Russia due to the destruction of harmful insects by bats is accelerated by ten percent. Since insects are often carriers of various diseases dangerous to humans, due to the active hunting of bats, the risk of picking up dangerous disease is significantly reduced.

Known ca. 1000 species of bats. The smallest of them, the pig-nosed bat ( Craseonycteris thonglongyai), is the smallest modern mammal. Its length can reach only 29 mm (no tail) with a mass of 1.7 g and a wingspan of 15 cm. The largest bat is the kalong flying fox ( Pteropus vampyrus) up to 40 cm long (no tail) and weighing 1 kg with a wingspan of 1.5 m.

As experiments have shown, bats do not distinguish colors, and since the night or twilight nature of activity is typical for them, a brightly colored skin is useless for them. The color of most of these animals is brownish or grayish, although some of them are red, white, black or even piebald. Usually their fur is formed by longer guard hairs and thick undercoat, but two species of naked-skinned bats ( Cheiromeles) are almost completely hairless. The tail of bats may be long, short, or completely absent; it is partially or entirely enclosed in a skin tail membrane extending from the hind limbs, or completely free.

Among mammals, only bats are capable of active flapping flight. The flying squirrel rodent, the woolly wing, and some other "flying" animals do not actually fly, but glide with greater height to a smaller one, stretching the folds of skin (patagial membranes) that protrude from the sides of their torso and are attached to the fore and hind limbs (in the coleopter they reach the ends of the fingers and tail).

Most bats cannot match the speed of flight with faster birds, however, bats ( Myotis) it reaches approximately 30–50 km/h, in a large brown leather ( Eptesicus fuscus) 65 km/h, while the Brazilian folded lip ( Tadarida brasiliensis) almost 100 km/h.

Appearance and structure.

The scientific name of the detachment, Chiroptera, is made up of two Greek words: cheiros - hand and pteron - wing. They have very elongated bones of the forelimb and especially the four fingers of the hand, which support and, with the help of muscles, set in motion an elastic skin membrane that runs from the sides of the body forward to the shoulder, forearm and fingertips, and back to the heel. Sometimes it continues between the hind limbs, forming a tail, or interfemoral, membrane, providing additional support in flight. In the hand, only the first finger, equipped with a claw, is not elongated. The toes of the hind limb are about the same as those of other mammals, but the calcaneus is elongated into a long spur that supports the posterior edge of the tail membrane. The hindquarters are turned outward, probably to facilitate landing upside down and hanging on the toes; as a result, the knees bend backward.

Fruit bats.

The bats (Pteropodidae) include the largest bats - flying foxes ( Pteropus). In total, there are 42 genera and 170 species in the family, which are distributed from tropical Africa to Australia and the islands Pacific Ocean. Most feed on fruits, some, such as the Australian fruit bat ( Syconycteris), - nectar and pollen. The species of this family have large eyes, and they are guided by sight, only flying dogs, or night bats ( Rousettus), use simple form echolocation. Male African hammerhead fruit bat ( Hypsignathus monstrosus) is distinguished by a large head with a hammer-like muzzle, and its huge larynx occupies a third of the body cavity. He uses a loud croaking cry, among other things, to attract females to the mating place, to the “lek”.

free-tailed bats

(Rhinopomatidae) from North Africa and South Asia are small animals with a long, mouse-like tail. This family has one genus and three species.

Case-tailed or sac-winged bats

(Emballonuridae) are small to medium sized animals. They feed on insects and are found in tropical regions of both hemispheres. 11 genera and 51 species are known. One view from Central and South America differs in pure white color, it is named so - white case-tail ( Diclidurus albus).

Pig-nosed bats

(Craseonycteridae) are the smallest modern mammals. The only species of this family was discovered in a cave in Thailand in 1973.

Fish-eating bats

(Noctilionidae) from the tropical regions of America and the West Indies are relatively large tan animals with long hind legs and feet, but short muzzles, reminiscent of bulldogs. One genus with two species has been described. The large angler already mentioned, or the Mexican fish-eating bat, feeds mainly on fish.

Slit-faced bats

(Nycteridae) live in Africa, on the Malay Peninsula and the island of Java. These are small bats with a deep longitudinal groove in the middle of the muzzle. One genus with 12 species has been described.

False vampires

(Megadermatidae) are so named because they were once thought to be bloodsuckers, but are actually carnivores feeding on birds, mice, other bats, lizards, and insects. They accumulate to rest in caves, houses, tree hollows, abandoned wells and in dense tree crowns. Yellow-winged false vampire ( Lavia fronts), which eats insects, is distinguished by huge ears and long silky fur with orange, yellow and green tints, which fades after the death of the animal.

horseshoes

(Rhinolophidae) are widespread in the Old World. The nostrils of these bats are surrounded by complex outgrowths of the skin, one of which resembles a horseshoe, which led to the name of the whole group. One genus of the family unites 68 species of insectivorous bats.

False horseshoes

(Hipposideridae) are closely related to horseshoe bats, and some experts consider them a subfamily of the latter. The skin outgrowths around the nostrils are somewhat simpler. There are 9 genera and 59 species in the family.

Chinfolias

(Mormoopidae) live in the tropics of the New World. Their tail protrudes beyond the tail membrane. There are 8 species of these insectivorous mice, classified into two genera.

American leaf-nosed

(Phyllostomidae) are found only in the warm regions of America. Almost all of these creatures are characterized by a triangular or spear-shaped dermal outgrowth at the end of the muzzle just behind the nostrils. This group includes the false vampire ( Vampyrum spectrum), the largest bat in the New World, approx. 135 mm with a mass of 190 g and a wingspan of up to 91 cm. Godman's long nose ( Choeroniscus godmani) a long extensible tongue is equipped at the end with a brush of hard hairs; with its help, he extracts nectar from the corolla of tropical flowers that open at night. This family also includes the builder leaf-nosed ( Uroderma bilobatum), which builds an individual shelter for itself, biting the veins on a banana or palm leaf so that its halves sag, forming a canopy that protects from rain and sun. The family includes 45 genera with 140 species.

Vampire

(Desmodontidae) feed exclusively on the blood of warm-blooded animals (birds and mammals). They are found in the tropical regions of America from Mexico to Argentina. These are rather small animals with a body length (i.e. head and body) rarely exceeding 90 mm, with a mass of 40 g and a wingspan of 40 cm. Many bats are unable to move on a hard surface, but vampires crawl quickly and dexterously. Having descended near the intended victim or directly on her, they move to a convenient area on her body, usually lightly covered with wool or feathers, and, using their extremely sharp teeth, quickly and painlessly bite through the skin. The victim, especially sleeping, usually does not notice this. The vampire does not suck blood, but only applies the underside of the tongue to the protruding drop, and due to capillary forces, it enters the longitudinal grooves passing through the tongue. Periodically pulling the tongue into the mouth, the animal feeds. There are 3 genera in the family, one species in each.

Funnel-eared

(Natalidae) are small, fragile insectivorous bats with very long hind limbs and thin flight membranes. They are found in the tropical regions of America. 1 genus with 4 species is described.

Smoky bats

(Furipteridae), tiny animals from South and Central America, easily recognizable by their rudimentary thumb. Two genera have been described, one species each.

American sucker bats

(Thyropteridae), inhabitants of the tropical regions of America. They have concave suction discs at the base of the first toe and on the sole of the hind foot. They allow the animals to attach to a smooth surface, and any suction cup is able to support the weight of the entire animal. The only genus includes 3 species.

Madagascar suckerpods

(Myzopodidae) are found only in Madagascar. The only species of these bats is not closely related to the American sucker, but is equipped with similar suckers.

Leather

(Vespertilionidae) are represented by 37 genera and 324 species. They are found in temperate and tropical zones all over the world, and in many areas with a temperate climate, these are the only bats. Almost all species feed exclusively on insects, but the piscivorous bat, in keeping with its name, eats mainly fish.

Sheath-winged

(Mystacinidae) are represented by a single species, the New Zealand sheath wing.

Fold-lipped bats

(Molossidae) - strong insectivorous animals with long narrow wings, short ears and short shiny fur. Their tail protrudes strongly beyond the interfemoral membrane and is longer than the extended hind limbs. These fast fliers are found in warm and tropical regions of both hemispheres. They rest in groups ranging from a few individuals to many thousands of animals in caves, rock crevices, buildings, and even under galvanized iron roofs, where the tropical sun heats the air to a very high temperature. 11 genera and 88 species have been described. This family includes the largest bat in the United States - the great eumops ( Eumops perotis), also called the whiskered bulldog bat. The length of her body (head and torso) is approx. 130 mm, tail - 80 mm, weight up to 65 g, wingspan can exceed 57 cm. Two species of this family, naked-skinned bats from South-East Asia and Philippines ( Cheiromeles torquatus And C. parvidens), are unique among bats for their virtually hairless bodies. Brazilian lip folds have been used by the thousands in one of research projects during World War II as suicide bombers. This project, called "X-ray", involved attaching small incendiary time bombs to the animal's torso, keeping the animals hibernating at 4°C and parachuting them in self-expanding containers over enemy territory, where they were supposed to were crawling into houses. Shortly before the end of the war, the development of such weapons, directed, in particular, against the cities of Japan, was abandoned.

paleontological history.

Bats are a very ancient group. They lived in the Old and New Worlds already in the Middle Eocene, ca. 50 million years ago. They most likely originated from arboreal insectivores in the Eastern Hemisphere, but the oldest fossil bat, Icaronycteris index, found in the Eocene deposits of Wyoming.


Few people see bats, even fewer can say anything intelligible about them - so, a rarity, an accidental whim of nature! - meanwhile, their role, like that of terrestrial mammals in the era of dinosaurs, is not at all insignificant, and they themselves are not so small in number: Of the 5.5 thousand species of mammals on the globe, more than 1200 are bats, more species only in rodents. That is, every fourth or fifth animal on the planet flies.

In addition to the polar regions and some oceanic islands, bats live everywhere - both where no human foot has set foot, and where millions of feet trample on city sidewalks, including nesting in secluded corners of modern buildings in megacities. Most of them have never seen in the city - well, how many have you seen in your life in the city, say, swift nests? It's just that the swifts themselves fly during the day and yell in the audible range, and that's an eyesore to us. Bats are not like that, and if one or two flashed in front of you in the middle lane at dusk, you can safely assume that 50-100 of these animals live here per square kilometer. In the oases, for example, of Central Asia, up to two thousand of these creatures per square kilometer live; there are more of them than all other mammals.

By origin, the order of chiropterans was previously grouped together with woolly wings, blunt-like and primates into the superorder of archons. According to modern views, bats are related to laurasiatheres - that is, closer to wolves and sheep than to humans and normal mice. Bats are divided into two suborders: fruit bats (one family) and bats (17 families). Previously it has been suggested that these groups evolved independently and their similarities are convergent, but genetic research show that they had a common flying ancestor.

It is not known exactly when bats appeared, because their remains are poorly preserved, but in the early Eocene they already existed and even then were approximately the same as now. On the skull of the most ancient fossil species, there are no signs indicating echolocation - this ability developed in bats later than the ability to fly. The most primitive of today's bats, fruit bats, with the exception of some nocturnal species, also rely on sight and their muzzles are similar to those of their terrestrial ancestors. Fruit bats are also the worst flyers among bats: their wings are wide, with almost rounded ends. The best flyers - bulldog bats - have long sickle-shaped curved wings that allow them to achieve much greater speeds and maneuverability.

What do non-specialists know about bats? On the net you can find translations of varying degrees of nasty translations of something like "20 amazing facts from the life of bats", but ideas about big picture they almost never give. An erudite person will immediately mention the ability of bats to echolocation. Let's start with her. The bizarre fleshy outgrowths around the nostrils in some of them are needed in order to focus the ultrasonic signals emitted by the nostril. The smooth-nosed bats, while hunting, emit ultrasound from their mouths. Sound impulses are reflected from objects and captured by the auricles.

In addition to ultrasound, bats also use conventional sound signals, mainly for communication. These sounds usually lie at the threshold of human perception. Children hear the chirping and squeaking of most species, the elderly only a few. The frequencies that serve for orientation in flight lie outside the range perceived by the human ear, and glory to the Creator: the volume of the squeak of some species, for example, the Malay bat, is 145 decibels - like that of an airplane taking off. Bats themselves should praise the Creator even more - they do not disturb people's sleep at night, and they do not purposefully destroy them for the mere noise.

There is an opinion among the people that the eyes of bats are not adapted to see, but this is not so. Their eyesight is no worse than that of other animals, and some of them are even excellent, with the help of which they find food. They do not distinguish colors (this is an indispensable condition for good night vision), but species that feed on nectar are able to see in the ultraviolet range.

The sense of smell and touch are also well developed - in addition to the usual vibrissae on the muzzle for most mammals, tactile hairs are located on the surface of the flying membranes and auricles. Spatial memory is also well developed, especially in horseshoe bats, whose well-focused location beam carries detailed information, but about a very small area, and their idea of ​​any large object is formed from separate fragments, as if we were studying a large picture in a dark room with a narrow beam of a flashlight. Otherwise it is impossible - when a bat, for example, flies through a forest, then a series of its ultrasonic clicks causes a whole stream of reflected echo signals. If the animal recorded all these reflections, then it would be a complete mess. Therefore, such mice simultaneously pick up echoes from the nearest object and from objects located narrowly along the course, but not from all sides.

So, when zoologists allowed the bats that lived in the enclosure to fly to a new room, for a whole week, fluttering there for a few seconds, examining a small piece of the volume, they immediately returned to the familiar room. Only having put into memory "heard" with the help of the locator, they again flew to an unfamiliar place for a new portion of news. But when the "map of the area" was drawn up, they began to behave so uninhibitedly that it became impossible to catch them there. In nature, these creatures are able to store in memory a complete 3D map of their native cave, sometimes with a total length of several kilometers, with the exact locations of the exits from the grottoes, sometimes indistinguishable among the numerous cracks in the stone placer.

A fragmentary perception of the world makes them very vulnerable - if such animals, disturbed by a person, begin to move to another attic or to another cave, then, not knowing the new monastery thoroughly, they will be helpless for a long time. The development of speleotourism has led to a reduction in the number of some species by hundreds of times, and in temperate latitudes the diversity is already not great - the ranges of no more than two or three species extend to the northern border of the taiga.

There are already several dozen species in the Mediterranean, and several hundred in the Congo and Amazon valleys. The bats living in our country are entirely insectivorous, and in warm regions there are species that feed exclusively on fish, frogs, nectar, fruits or blood. There is nothing particularly surprising in this, only the details are interesting. For example, on the hind limbs of fish lovers there are long fingers with sharp curved claws, very similar to small gaffs. High-speed shooting testified how the fishermen lowered their paws into the water and, turning the victim's purple, intercepted it with their teeth with lightning speed. In this case, all the energy of sound waves at the air-water interface is reflected, the mouse itself does not see the fish under water. But she notices very slight fluctuations in the water from the fins of a fish swimming close to the surface.

Mexican bats that feed on frogs find them by ear, and not by echolocation, but by the croaking emitted by the frogs themselves. At the same time, edible species are distinguished from poisonous ones, and within the species - too large individuals from those suitable for capture.

Some bats feed on flowers - just eat them whole. Others drink nectar and lick pollen. All such species are very small, and some are just tiny. Their muzzle is elongated, conical. A long thick tongue, at the end of which there are many bristle-like papillae, helps to lick the pollen. Many plants rely solely on nectar-feeding bats for pollination, and the flowers they visit open their corollas at night. Like the fruits favored by bats, they are modest greens or browns and are found at the very ends of the branches. The nectar of such flowers is very rich in sugar, but it contains few vitamins, proteins and fats. To eliminate the vitamin-protein gap in their diet, the animals eat pollen, and sometimes supplement their menu with insects. Residents of Sri Lanka and the Philippines often see such pollinators stealthily fly up and drink from buckets of fermented palm juice collected to prepare local alcoholic drink, and then fly in zigzags.

Real vampires are very timid animals, weighing no more than 30 g and rather weak even by the standards of bats. In their salivary glands there is a secret close to hirudin secreted by leeches. It prevents blood from clotting and anesthetizes the bite. Vampires do not stick their fangs into the jugular vein - their teeth are short. Having cut the skin of a horse or cow with their front incisors, vampires lick the blood. In 10-30 minutes they are licked to the point that they become half their own weight and for this reason they cannot take off. Here they are rescued by super-powerful kidneys, probably the best among all the kidneys of all mammals. The vampire's kidneys begin to secrete fluid 2-3 minutes after eating. And he, leaving the nutrients of someone else's blood in the body, instantly pouring water away, acquires the ability to fly. However, there is no need to imagine unnecessary horrors - a vampire drinks no more than a tablespoon of blood at a time. For a cow, this is a trifling loss, but if she is attacked several times every night, her health will certainly deteriorate. In addition, in some areas of Central America, vampires are carriers of rabies.

A vampire. Interestingly, of all the bats, the vampire has the most small teeth He doesn't need to chew his food.

There are no vampires in the Old World, and the rumor about the evil disposition of bats, although based on facts, stems from ignorance. How is that? And so: anatomical structure they are such that if they are held horizontally in the hand, like other creatures, then after a few minutes they experience severe oxygen starvation. The fact is that their life flows either in a sleeping position upside down, or in flight. Their ribs are motionless - they draw air into themselves with the help of a diaphragm. In a horizontal position, the corresponding muscles are bled and it is not surprising that, gasping for breath, the animals begin to beat in the hand and bite everything that turns up. When this became clear, zoologists began to put the animals caught for research not in bags, but in nylon or metal nets, where they could hang upside down. And it turned out that bats are good-natured and intelligent creatures, willingly making contact with humans and even amenable to training.

Ways of hunting "our usual" - insectivorous - bats are also varied. Most bat flyers grab prey on the fly with their mouths, helping themselves with their wings. When large insect hits the wing, the animal bends it and, like a hand, moves the prey to the mouth. Actually the wings are the front paws. Some catch butterflies with their hind legs, "scooping" moths into the tail membrane. Long-eared bats do not get food in the air, but collect butterflies from the vaults at the beginning of the caves. Some Far Eastern bats prefer to catch insects by running on the ground. They only need to fly to the feeding grounds.

The laboratory calculated that one bat catches about 600 fruit flies per hour. It took an average of only ten seconds to locate, pursue, and capture each. Given that, like any small warm-blooded, each bat in the active phase per day requires an amount of food comparable to its weight, they destroy one biting midge over the summer - without exaggeration - tons. In the center of the European part of the country, their hunting for pests accelerates the growth of trees by 10%. The useful activity of night flyers gave grounds to adopt legislative provisions equating their extermination with poaching (if anyone is interested, today, according to the order of the Ministry of Natural Resources No. 1500 rubles). But, alas, they continue to be destroyed, and not only by evil and ignorant people...

If we swallow something, then digestion immediately begins. Not so with bats. After a night hunt, when bats sleep, having lowered their body temperature, the enzymes in their stomach are inactive, although it is full of food, the intestines are empty, the acidity is such that protein hydrolysis cannot proceed - with deep daytime sleep in insectivorous animals, digestion is delayed by five hours. The ability to fall into suspended animation is vital for them to wait out bad weather - in bad weather there are almost no flying insects, and frosts and rains in temperate latitudes can last for weeks. The fact is described, when an involuntary recluse, having starved for 48 days, as if nothing had happened flew away to hunt, I quickly regained my tiny weight. However, some species continue to hunt in the rain - there would be insects - and they adapted to this rather well, for example, tube-noses have the same coat structure as muskrats, beavers and desmans.

The leaf-bearing builder builds a shelter for itself by biting the veins of a banana or palm leaf so that the halves sag to form a canopy that protects from rain and sun.

For the winter, most species of bats migrate to warmer climes like birds, and hibernators spend the winter in secluded places. Best of all - in a cave, where the temperature is about zero (so that you don't want to eat) and there is enough humidity (so you don't want to drink). Alas, the caves are now restless - every now and then the turyo scurries. And bats have to hide for the winter in an abandoned mine, in an attic, or even in a haystack or holes of sand martins. Many mice won't fit in there, oh they love company, though cold: in hibernation their bodies cool down to + 2 °, breathing and pulse are hundreds of times rarer than in summer. In terms of cooling and heating, no mammal can compete with bats - their body temperature can vary from -7.5 ° to + 48.5 ° without damage to health - a spread of 56 °.

If you have ever removed a bat sleeping in a cave in winter from the wall "just to look, photograph and release" - know: there is a possibility that you killed the animal with this. In the middle lane there are no flying insects for more than half a year, and life in miniature bodies is glimmering only due to the energy of fat stored in summer. The animal saves with all his might. If during the flight the heart makes 400-600 beats per minute, and the body temperature is about 40 °, then in hibernation - sluggish 3-4 beats, and the temperature drops to the temperature of a dungeon or attic. The speed of biochemical processes drops a hundred times! Violent awakening with an emergency heating of the "engine", the stress of being captured by a person and looking for another place are a huge waste of energy accumulated in the summer.

It is undesirable to disturb bats in their dwellings in the summer, especially in June and July. After all, they usually have only one or two cubs, born once a year. So summer sleep does not bring any special benefits to females - they need to produce milk. On the other hand, lazy males, who spend nine-tenths of their lives in hibernation and daytime stupor, have a longer stay in this world than their girlfriends - if hibernation proceeds in peace and quiet, there is almost no wear and tear on the body. Some of them live for 30 years. However, the real active life they have only two or three years, the same age as other warm-blooded creatures of the same size.

Migrating bats for the summer fly into the same hollows, the same attics where they lived before. At the same time, in some species, only one male per 20 females returns to their historical homeland, while in other, very close species, in general, all winged males remain in resort areas. What attracts pregnant females from fertile lands to the north? That's what . In June-July, when they feed their young, there are much more flying insects than where the males are left. It is the abundance of insects that allows a tiny mother - a female dwarf bat, weighing only five grams and giving birth to two cubs weighing one gram, to feed both up to 4.5 grams of milk in three or four weeks.

Zoologists, observing the life of bats in an enclosure, saw how a hungry two-three-week-old cub, whose mother decided to rest in another shelter, watches for other people's wet nurses. He manages to grab onto the nipple of a female that has flown into an artificial hollow and, together with her, quickly minces to where she left her offspring. The native child, making sure that the place is occupied, hurries to cling to the free nipple. All bat mothers disinterestedly give milk to all two-three-week-old babies. And the point here is not only in the kindness of the soul, but also in physiology. The amount of milk produced by females is very, very large for such small creatures - as a result, in any large colony, when the biological mother dies, there is a high probability of survival of the cub.

Of the bird enemies, bats are not only predators. If a hollow, inhabited by a bat inhabitant, likes, for example, a starling, he, without hesitation, drives the owner away. A bat cannot resist - a bird, even with equal dimensions, is stronger, more invulnerable thanks to feathers and armed with a beak and claws. If no one disturbs, bats in hollows during the breeding season - this is the end of summer and the beginning of autumn - sometimes ... sing. Moreover, in the range audible to the human ear, emitting soft, sharp trills.

As a finishing touch, here is a very nice manual (it looks like a slightly edited machine translation) for breeding bats from a Russian-language site dedicated to pets. Author's style and markup preserved:

"The bats They reproduce by mating like other mammals. They can have offspring during their youth and can live up to 30 years, being able to breed many times. Home bat can be of almost any kind, and its natural climate should be similar to where it will live.
Instructions
Step 1
keep a lot bats together in the chicken coop. The chicken coop should be a sturdy box large enough for your bats so they can fly. It should have heavy nets at the bottom, sides and top to the bats could cling during sleep and wakefulness. The bats social animals and they will be happy if there are many others around bats. Bat does not seek to keep the same partner throughout his life. The female mates with many males during her lifetime.
Step 2
Wait until autumn to breed bats. They will reproduce on their own without your intervention. The bats, two years old, will be mature and ready to breed. In autumn, after mating, the female retains the spermatozoa and stores them until spring, when they fertilize the eggs. Pregnancy lasts about 16 weeks, resulting in 1 to 4 babies in early spring.
Step 3
Let mother bat produce milk for their babies, who will be blind, naked and seemingly unable to fly. The mother will carry the children on her body for about 2 weeks until they get stronger. Keep an eye on the cubs so that they become mature, after which you will probably create a place for more pilots.
Step 4
Move the cubs to another coop so they have enough room to fly. They will fly on their own wings as early as 20 days after birth. After the cubs are already in the air, breeding is completed until next autumn.

VVia hariton off

Bats are the only mammals that have mastered the art of flapping flight. Their forelimbs are transformed into wings, elongated finger bones, like knitting needles, support a flying membrane stretched between the front and hind legs and tail. The front toe of the wing is free of webs and ends in a prehensile claw used in climbing. In the skeleton of bats, like birds, there is a keel to which powerful pectoral muscles are attached.

Features of the behavior of bats

Bats are a very large order, including about 1 thousand species. This includes bats and more primitive fruit bats. Bats are distributed throughout the world, especially in the tropics and subtropics. In different species, the body length ranges from 3 to 42 cm. All these animals are active at dusk or at night, and spend the day in the crowns of trees or in shelters - in the attics of houses, in hollows, caves, where they often form huge colonies. Animals living in temperate latitudes hibernate for the winter or fly to warmer regions.

Chiroptera are well adapted for long active flight. Small species of bats surpass most birds in flight maneuverability. In addition, bats deftly climb vertical surfaces, clinging to small irregularities with their claws. Bats use echolocation to navigate in the dark. They emit a series of ultrasonic squeaks and, by their reflections from objects, determine the location, size, shape, and even the smallest details of the surface. In this way, bats not only find food, but also turn in time so as not to run into an obstacle in flight.

Bat food

Bats feed on insects, and some tropical species- fruits of trees or nectar of flowers (a number of species tropical plants adapted to pollination only by bats). In South
And Central America there are fishing bats. Many people dislike and are afraid of bats, but most of them (especially insectivores) are of great benefit in destroying pests.
agriculture, as well as mosquitoes and mosquitoes.

Representatives of the vampire family feed mainly on the blood of warm-blooded animals (hence the name of the family). They silently descend on the body of a sleeping victim or approach it along the ground, cut through the skin with sharp forward incisors and stick to the wound. The victim usually does not feel the bite because the saliva of vampires contains painkillers. Thanks to the anticoagulant (a substance that prevents blood clotting) contained in saliva, blood continues to flow from the wound for several hours.

The vampire's tongue is designed in such a way that its lateral parts are wrapped to the bottom, forming a tube through which the animal sucks blood. A vampire drinks half the weight of blood in a day own body. Vampires are also dangerous because they are carriers of rabies and other diseases that are dangerous to humans and domestic animals.

Reproduction of bats (bats)

Bats breed once a year. Usually the female brings 1-2 cubs, which immediately hang on her nipples located on the chest. The cub clings to the mother's nipples with milk teeth. In this position, he is all the time in the first days of life. Only the female takes care of the offspring. In some species of bats (for example, fruit bats), the female constantly carries a newborn cub
on himself until he learns to fly. Other species, during the hunt, leave their offspring in shelters, where they form groups - something like kindergartens.

Interesting facts about bats

  • The vampire often attacks pets and people.
  • Ushans are distinguished from other bats by their very large ears, the length of which is almost equal to the length of the body. They have excellent hearing.
  • The flying dog rests, hanging on a branch upside down and fanning its wings.
  • Wingspan flying foxes reaches 170 cm, these are the largest representatives of bats belonging to the group of fruit bats. These animals do not have the ability to echolocation and in search of food are guided by smell and sight. They feed on the pulp of juicy fruits. They lead a twilight and nocturnal lifestyle, and spend the day hanging upside down on the branches of trees, and hundreds of individuals often gather on one tree.

ORDER BAT = CHIROPTERA BLUMENBACH, 1779

General characteristics. Known ca. 1000 species of bats. The smallest of these, the pig-nosed bat (Craseonycteris thonglongyai), is the smallest living mammal. Its length can reach only 29 mm (no tail) with a mass of 1.7 g and a wingspan of 15 cm. .5 m

As experiments have shown, bats do not distinguish colors, and since the night or twilight nature of activity is typical for them, a brightly colored skin is useless for them. The color of most of these animals is brownish or grayish, although some of them are red, white, black or even piebald. Usually their fur is formed by longer guard hairs and a thick undercoat, but two Yes, naked-skinned bats (Cheiromeles) are almost completely hairless. The tail of bats may be long, short, or completely absent; it is partially or entirely enclosed in a skin tail membrane extending from the hind limbs, or completely free.

Among mammals, only bats are capable of active flapping flight. The flying squirrel rodent, the woolly wing and some other “flying” animals do not actually fly, but glide from a higher height to a lower one, stretching the folds of skin (patagial membranes) that protrude from the sides of their body and are attached to the fore and hind limbs (in the woolly wing they reach to the tips of the fingers and tail).

Most bats cannot match the speed of flight with faster birds, however, in myotis (Myotis) it reaches approximately 30-50 km / h, in the great brown leather (Eptesicus fuscus) 65 km / h, and in the Brazilian folded lip (Tadarida brasiliensis) almost 100 km/h.

Appearance and structure. The scientific name of the detachment, Chiroptera, is made up of two Greek words: cheiros - hand and pteron - wing. They have very elongated bones of the forelimb and especially the four fingers of the hand, which support and, with the help of muscles, set in motion an elastic skin membrane that runs from the sides of the body forward to the shoulder, forearm and fingertips, and back to the heel. Sometimes it continues between the hind limbs, forming a tail, or interfemoral, membrane, providing additional support in flight. In the hand, only the first finger, equipped with a claw, is not elongated. The toes of the hind limb are about the same as those of other mammals, but the calcaneus is elongated into a long spur that supports the posterior edge of the tail membrane. The hindquarters are turned outward, probably to facilitate landing upside down and hanging on the toes; as a result, the knees bend backward.

Echolocation. Chiroptera can see well both in low light and in bright sunlight. But they can also navigate in pitch darkness using echolocation. Signals emitted by animals are reflected from nearby objects, the distance to which is determined by the return time of the echo. Chiropterans also use this system to detect and catch flying insects: they “rake” them with their membranes and grab them with their mouths on the fly.

The frequency of echolocation signals is usually 40,000–100,000 Hz, i.e. is beyond the limits of the perception of the human ear (no more than 20,000 Hz) and corresponds to ultrasound. Most bats emit ultrasound through their open mouth, some species through their nostrils. One of the components of the echolocation signal is distinguished by the human ear as quiet clicks. Usually, bats also emit chirps and squeaks that are quite audible to us.

Lifestyle. Although individuals of some species of bats keep alone, for the most part they are social creatures living in colonies, in which there are from several to many thousands of animals. Brazilian folded lip colonies in caves in the southwestern United States number in the millions of animals. Chiroptera usually settle in caves, trees and attics.

Summer colonies usually consist of females with cubs. A few adult males may also be present, but usually they are one-year-olds that are not capable of breeding. In some species, males form bachelor colonies, although solitary life is more typical for them. A lone bat outside the window at the beginning of summer is usually a male.

Only a few species, such as the southern sac-winged (Coleura afra), do not hang upside down when resting, preferring instead to crawl into cracks or cling to walls; some bats rest in earthen burrows. However, most bats rest upside down, hanging from the support with the help of the claws of the hind legs and forming dense clusters in the process. This crowding is likely beneficial from a thermoregulatory point of view, as it reduces temperature fluctuations. High temperatures (up to 55°C) are maintained in nursery colonies, accelerating the growth of cubs.

Chiroptera are mostly nocturnal creatures, but one species, the yellow-winged false vampire (Lavia frons), is often active during daylight hours. Common bats (Saccopteryx) from the tropics of America and some other species can fly out to hunt before dusk, and some of the fruit bats (Pteropus, Eidolon) are able to fly from place to place in daylight.

At dusk, insectivorous bats first head to a pond or stream, where they drink on the fly by gliding over the surface of the water. Then each animal feeds for about half an hour, stuffing the stomach with insects and sometimes absorbing up to a quarter of its own weight. After that, the females return to feed the cubs, while the males, and if there are no suckers in the colony, all individuals go to the places of night rest, where they digest and assimilate food. It occurs under bridges, overhangs, and in other relatively sheltered areas too open to provide shelter during the daytime. Before dawn, as a rule, it is time for the second feeding.

In the absence of young, the body of resting bats usually cools down to almost ambient temperature (daytime stupor). This energy-saving mechanism appears to be one of the contributing factors to the astonishing longevity of these small mammals who live up to 30 years of age.

If temperatures in the bats' habitat fall below freezing in winter, they either hibernate in caves or other sheltered areas, or migrate to warmer areas. Hibernation begins at temperatures below 4 ° C: this state resembles deep dream, in which the heartbeat is barely noticeable, and breathing slows down to one inhalation-exhalation in 5 minutes. In an active animal, the body temperature is 37–40 ° C, and during hibernation it drops to 5 ° C. Migrating bats usually fly distances of more than 300 km. The Brazilian lipfish can cover almost 1600 km, heading from the southwestern United States to "winter quarters" in Mexico.

reproduction. In the northern regions, the breeding season, as a rule, falls on the end of summer - autumn or spring, sometimes both periods. In a number of species, the time of birth of cubs can be greatly delayed so that they are born in best time of the year. For example, bats (Myotis) that mate in autumn retain sperm in the uterus for about five months, until the following spring, when ovulation (egg release) and fertilization occur. In the palm fruit bat (Eidolon helvum), the egg is fertilized immediately after mating, and the zygote develops to the blastocyst stage (a microscopic hollow ball of cells), but then its development stops and it is implanted in the uterine wall only after 3–5 months. In the Jamaican fruit-eating leaf-beetle (Artibeus jamaicensis), development stops for about 2.5 months after implantation of the blastocyst into the uterus.

The period of pregnancy, i.e. the time from fertilization to the birth of the cub, minus the delays described above, lasts from 50 to 60 days. However, it stretches for almost 6 months in flying foxes (Pteropus) and 7 months in the common vampire (Desmodus). The duration of pregnancy can be affected by temperature, since development is slowed down in cold weather.

In the northern temperate climate offspring are usually born from May to July. Most females bring a single cub once a year, but some species, such as the pale smooth-nosed (Antrozous pallidus), usually have twins, and the red hairy-tail (Lasiurus borealis) often has 3 or 4 cubs at the same time.

Usually bats are born naked and blind, but there are exceptions; in particular, in the red fruit-eating leaf-beetle (Stenoderma rufum), newborns are covered with fur. Newly born bats are relatively large, their weight reaches a third of the mother's. Like other mammals, they feed on milk. At the age of two weeks, the cub reaches half the size of the body of an adult, but cannot yet fly; leaving for feeding, the mother leaves him in the colony. If the colony is disturbed, females often carry babies to a new place: in flight, they hold on to their mother's nipples. Some bats, such as false horseshoe bats (family Hipposideridae), have false nipples between their hind limbs - specially developed for clings to cling to. At the age of about three weeks, the animals begin to fly.

Feed. In general, bats eat a variety of foods, but the diet of each family is highly specialized. Most consume insects. However, some feed on flowers, nectar, pollen, fruits. Some bats kill and eat birds, mice, lizards, smaller bats, and frogs. Vampire bats feed exclusively on warm blood. At least 3 species catch small fish, grabbing them with the claws of their hind limbs near the surface of the water; these are the big angler (Noctilio leporinus), the fish-eating bat (Myotis vivesi) and the Indian false vampire (Megaderma lyra).

Enemies. Bats have many enemies. They are often attacked by owls, sometimes falconiformes. They are also eaten by snakes, cats, martens, raccoons and other predators. Sometimes bats are caught by fish. However, the main culprit of the sharp decline in the number of bats in our time has become a man. Several species of bats are now considered endangered.

Economic importance. The main benefit of bats is the destruction of harmful insects by them at night. During the night, the animal eats their number, which is more than half of its own body weight. It is estimated that bats from the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico consume several tons of insects in one summer night. Many plants in the tropics are pollinated by nectarivorous bats, with at least one plant species completely dependent on these pollinators. By eating fruits, bats spread seeds and thus contribute to the restoration of the forest. Bat droppings (guano) serve as a valuable fertilizer; more than 100,000 tons of it have been mined from the Carlsbad caves alone. In some parts of Africa, bats are used for food and sold in bunches in the markets. One such species is the fruit-eating palm fruit bat (Eidolon helvum) in Zaire.

On the other hand, frugivorous bats in tropical countries damage orchards. Vampires attack livestock; however, they tend to infect the same animals and can undermine their health. Sometimes vampires carry rabies; some bats temperate zone also serve as a natural reservoir of this disease.

Spreading. In their distribution, bats are limited only climatic conditions. They live all over the world, with the exception of the polar regions and spaces above the open sea, occupying all habitats except water ones. Bats are most numerous in warm and tropical countries. http://www.krugosvet.ru/articles/01/1000172/print.htm