A bat is an animal that belongs to the class Mammals, order Chiroptera, suborder the bats(lat. Microchiroptera).

Bats got their name not because they are relatives belonging to the order of rodents, but most likely due to their small size and the sounds they make, similar to a mouse squeak.

Bat - description, structure. What does a bat look like?

Bats are the only mammals on Earth that can fly. Often this entire detachment is mistakenly called bats, but in fact it is not. The order of bats includes the family of fruit bats (lat. Pteropodidae), which does not belong to the suborder of bats (lat. Microchiroptera). Fruit bats, often called flying dogs, flying foxes, fruit bats, differ from bats in their structure, habits and abilities.

Bats are small mammals. The smallest representative of the suborder is the pig-nosed bat (lat. Craseonycteris thonglongyai). Its weight is 1.7-2.0 g, body length varies from 2.9 to 3.3 cm, and the wingspan reaches 16 cm. This is one of the smallest animals in the world. One of the largest bats is the giant false vampire (lat. Vampyrum spectrum), which has a wingspan of up to 70-75 cm, a wing width of 15-16 cm and a weight of 150-200 g.

The structure of the skull in different species of bats is different, as well as the structure and number of teeth. Both depend on the nutrition of the species. For example, in a nectar-eating tailless long-tongued leaf-bearer (lat. Glossophaga soricina) the front of the skull is elongated to accommodate it long tongue to which he feeds. Bats, like other mammals, have a heterodont dental system, including incisors, canines, premolars and molars. Individuals that eat insects with thick chitinous coatings have larger teeth and longer fangs than those that eat soft-shelled insects. Small insectivorous bats can have up to 38 small teeth, while vampires have only 20. Vampires do not require many teeth, since they do not need to chew food, but their fangs, designed to make a bleeding wound on the victim's body, are razor-sharp. In fruit-eating bats, the upper and lower cheek teeth resemble mortars and pestles in which fruits are crushed.

Many bats have large ears, such as the brown earflap (lat. Plecotus auritus), and bizarre nasal outgrowths, like horseshoe bats. These features affect the echolocation abilities of the bat.

In the course of evolution, the forelimbs of bats were transformed into wings. The humerus shortened, and the fingers lengthened, they serve as the frame of the wing. The first finger with a claw is free. With its help, animals move in a shelter and manipulate food. In some species, for example, in smoky bats (lat. Furipteridae), the first finger is non-functional. The second, third and fourth fingers strengthen the part of the wing between the first and fifth and form the interdigital membrane, or apex of the wing. The fifth finger is extended to the entire width of the wing. The humerus and shorter radius support the trunk membrane, or base of the wing, which acts as a load-bearing surface. The speed of a bat depends on the shape of its wings. They can be highly elongated or slightly elongated. By the shape of the wing, one can judge the lifestyle of a bat. Wings with a slight elongation do not allow to develop high speed, but they make it possible to maneuver well among the crowns of trees. Highly elongated wings are designed for high-speed flight in open space.

Bats of small and medium size fly at a speed of 11 to 54 km/h while searching for prey. The fastest flying animal is the Brazilian folded lip (lat. Tadarida brasiliensis) from the genus of bulldog bats, which is capable of speeds up to 160 km / h.

Taken from: www.steveparish-natureconnect.com.au

The hind limbs of bats, unlike other mammals, are turned to the sides. knee joints back. Animals hang on them in shelters with the help of well-developed claws.

Some species are able to move on all four limbs. For example, an ordinary vampire (lat. Desmodus rotundus) during the hunt, landing on the body of the victim or next to it, he approaches on foot to the place where he bites.

Bats have tails of various lengths:

  • partially enclosed in the interfemoral membrane, with a free tip located on top of it, like in sac-wings (lat. Emballonuridae);
  • completely enclosed in the interfemoral membrane, like in myotis (lat. Myotis);
  • protruding beyond the interfemoral membrane, as in folded lips (lat. Molossidae);
  • long free tail, like a mousetail (lat.Rhinopoma).

The body, and sometimes the limbs of mammals are covered with hair. The coat of a bat can be even or shaggy, short or not very, sparse or thick.

The color of bats is dominated by gray, brown, black tones. Some animals are lighter in color - in fawn, whitish, yellowish shades. Occasionally there are also bright specimens. For example, in the Mexican fish-eating bat (lat. Noctilio leporinus) fur is yellow or orange.

Taken from: www.mammalwatching.com

There are bats white color with yellow ears and nose - these are Honduran white bats (lat. Ectophylla alba).

Taken from faculty.washington.edu

In nature, there are bats with a body that is not covered with hair. Two species of naked-skinned bats are known from Southeast Asia and the Philippines (lat. Cheiromeles torquatus And Cheiromeles parvidens) they are almost completely devoid of wool, only sparse hairs remain.

Bats have unique hearing. It is the leading sense organ in these animals. For example, false horseshoe bats (lat. Hipposideridae) catch the rustle of insects swarming in the grass or under a layer of leaves. On the ears of many bats there is a tragus - a narrow skin-cartilaginous outgrowth rising from the base of the ear. It serves to amplify and better perceive the sound.

Taken from: blogs.crikey.com.au

Vision in bats is poorly developed. There is no color vision at all. But still, bats are not blind, and some even see quite well. For example, the California leaf-bearer (lat. Macrotus californicus) sometimes, with appropriate lighting, looking for prey with the help of the eyes.

Bats have not lost their sense of smell. According to the smell of the female Brazilian folded lip (lat. Tadarida brasiliensis) find their young. Some bats distinguish members of their colony from strangers. Big night bats (lat. Myotis myotis) and New Zealand bats (lat. Mystacina tuberculata) smell prey under a layer of foliage. New World leaf-bearers (lat. Phyllostomidae) find the fruits of nightshade plants by smell.

How do bats navigate in the dark?

The main means of orienting bats in space (for example, in dark caves) is echolocation. Animals emit ultrasonic signals that bounce off objects and echo back. Sounds originating in the throat, the animal makes through the mouth or directs them to the nose, radiating through the nostrils. In such individuals, the nostrils are surrounded by bizarre outgrowths that form and focus sound.

People only hear how bats squeak, because the ultrasonic range in which these animals transmit echolocation signals is inaccessible to the human ear. Unlike humans, a bat analyzes the signal reflected from an object and determines its location and size. The mouse "echo sounder" is so accurate that it captures objects with a diameter of 0.1 mm. In addition, winged mammals clearly distinguish all kinds of objects: for example, different types trees. Bats hunt using echolocation. By reflected ultrasonic waves, winged hunters in complete darkness not only find the prey, but also determine its size and speed. During the search for prey, the frequency of sounds reaches 10 oscillations per second, increasing to 200-250 just before the attack. In addition, the bat can squeak when inhaling, exhaling, and even while chewing food. Before the discovery of ultrasound, these mammals were thought to have extrasensory perception.

Representatives of the suborder are able to make both low-frequency and high-frequency sounds, and at the same time. The animal screams and listens at a speed incomprehensible to humans. Some bats, hunting nocturnal insects, emit up to 250 calls per second when approaching them. Some potential victims (, crickets) have developed the ability to hear the squeak of a bat in advance and respond to it with a deceptive maneuver or falling to the ground.

By the way, echolocation is developed not only in bats, but also in seals, shrews, scoop butterflies, and also in some birds.

Where do bats live?

Bats are widely distributed throughout the world, with the exception of Antarctica, the Arctic and some oceanic islands. These animals are most numerous and diverse in the tropics and subtropics.

Bats are nocturnal or crepuscular animals. During daylight hours, they hide in shelters, which can be located in a variety of places underground and above ground. These can be caves, rock crevices, quarries, adits, various buildings built by man. Many varieties of bats live on trees: in hollows, bark crevices, in branches, in foliage. Some mice take refuge in original shelters, such as under bird nests, in bamboo stalks, and even in cobwebs. American suckers (lat. Thyroptera) roost in young folded leaves that unfold after the animals leave their homes. Leaf-bearers-builders (lat. Uroderma Peters), biting the leaves of palm trees and other plants along certain lines, they get a semblance of an awning from them.

Some species of bats prefer to live alone or in small groups, such as the lesser horseshoe bat (lat. Rhinolophus hipposideros), but they mostly stay in colonies. For example, females of the great bat (lat. Myotis myotis) gather in colonies from several tens to several thousand individuals. The record for the number of members is one of the colonies of the Brazilian folded lips (lat. Tadarida brasiliensis), numbering up to 20 million individuals.

How do bats hibernate?

Bats that live in cold and temperate latitudes, in the cold season hibernate, which can last up to 8 months. Some species carry out seasonal migrations over distances of up to 1000 km, such as the red hairtail (lat. Lasiurus borealis).

Why do bats sleep upside down?

Bats stand out among mammals not only because they can fly, but also because they can rest: during daytime rest or hibernation, bats hang upside down on their hind legs. This position allows the animals to instantly fly straight from their starting position, simply falling down: less energy is spent this way, and time is saved in case of danger. Suspended upside down, bats cling to wall ledges, tree branches, etc. with their claws. Being in this position, the animals do not get tired, because the tendon mechanism of closing the claws of their hind limbs is designed in such a way that it does not require the expenditure of muscle energy. Some species, settling down to rest, are wrapped in wings. Species such as large bats cluster in dense heaps, and small horseshoe bats always hang on the ceiling or vaults of the cave at some distance from each other.

What do bats eat?

Most bats are insectivorous. Some catch insects on the fly, others pick up bugs sitting on the foliage. Among tropical species there are those who feed exclusively on the fruits, pollen and nectar of plants. But there are also varieties that eat both fruits and insects. For example, the New Zealand bat (lat. Mystacina tuberculata) feeds on various invertebrates: insects, earthworms, centipedes and, but, at the same time, consumes fruits, nectar and pollen. The diet of fish-eating bats (lat. Noctilio) consists of fish and other aquatic inhabitants. Panamanian large leaf-bearer (lat. Phyllostomus hastatus) eats small birds and mammals. There are also species that feed exclusively on the blood of wild and domestic animals, some birds, and sometimes humans. These are vampire bats, among which 3 species stand out: terry-legged (lat. Diphylla ecaudata), white-winged (lat. Diaemus youngi) and ordinary (lat. Desmodus rotundus) vampires. Other types of vampires live in other places on the globe, but they don’t drink blood.

Types of bats, photos and names

Below is short description several types of bats.

  • White leaf-bearing(lat. Ectophylla alba)

A tailless species that belongs to the genus of white leaf-bearers. These are small animals with a body length of 3.7-4.7 cm and a weight of no more than 7 grams. Leaf-nosed females are smaller than males. The body color of the animal corresponds to its name: the boiling-white back passes into the sacrum of a grayish tint, the lower abdomen also has a gray color. The nose and ears of the animal have a yellow tone, and the eyes are underlined by a gray frame around them. White leaf-nosed live in the South and Central America, namely in countries such as Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama. Animals prefer moist evergreen forests, climbing no higher than seven hundred meters above sea level. Usually these white bats live alone or live in small groups of no more than 6 individuals. Animals feed at night. The diet of these bats includes fruits and some types of ficus.

  • Giant evening party(lat. Nyctalus lasiopterus)

This is the largest variety of bats in Russia and European countries. The length of the body of the animal varies from 8.4 to 10.4 cm, and the weight of the bat is 41 - 76 g. The wingspan of the animal reaches 41-46 cm. The giant evening has a brownish or fawn-red back color and a lighter abdomen. Darker coloring prevails on the head behind the ears. The bat lives in forests, and its range extends from France to the Volga region and the Caucasus. Probably, the species is also found in the countries of the Middle East. Often the animal inhabits the hollows of trees together with other representatives of the suborder, less often forms its own colonies. The wintering places of this species are unknown; apparently, the animals make long-distance seasonal flights. In nature, the bat eats enough large insects(butterflies, beetles), as well as small passerine birds, which are caught in the air for quite high altitudes. This bat is listed in the Red Book.

  • Pig-nosed bat (lat.Craseonycteris thonglongyai)

This is the smallest bat in the world, which, due to its modest size, is called the bumblebee mouse. The body length of the animal is 2.9-3.3 cm, and the weight does not exceed 2 grams. The ears of the mammal are quite large, with a large tragus. The nose looks like a pig's snout. The color of the animal is usually grayish or dark brown with a slight shade of red, the animal's abdomen is lighter. Pig-nosed bats are endemic to southwestern Thailand and nearby Myanmar. Animals hunt in groups of up to five individuals at night. They fly over bamboo and teak trees in search of insects that sit on the leaves of trees, and when they find food, they hover over prey right in the air due to their small size and wing structure. The number of pig-nosed bats in the world is extremely low. These animals are among the ten most rare species on Earth and are listed in the International Red Book.

Taken from: www.thewildlifediaries.com

  • Two-color leather (two-color bat) (lat.Vespertilio murinus)

It has a body length of up to 6.4 cm and a wingspan of 27 to 33 cm. A bat weighs from 12 to 23 grams. The animal got its name because of the color of the fur, which combines two colors. The back is colored in shades from red to dark brown, and the belly is white or gray. The ears, wings and face of the animal are black or dark brown. These bats live on the territory of Eurasia - from England and France to the Pacific coast. Northern border of the range: Norway, central Russia, Southern Siberia; southern border: southern Italy, Iran, Himalayas, Northeast China. The habitat of the two-colored kozhan is mountains, steppes and woodlands. In countries Western Europe these bats are often found in major cities. Two-color leathers do not mind being close to other types of bats, with which they share common shelters: attics, cornices, tree hollows, rock cracks. Animals prey on, caddis flies, moths and other small insects throughout the night. The species is endangered and protected in many countries.

Taken from: www.aku-bochum.de

  • Greater harelip (fish-eating bat)(lat.Noctilio leporinus )

It has a body length of 6.5-13.2 cm and a weight of 60 to 78 g. The coloration of males and females varies: the former have a reddish or bright red body, the latter are painted in dull grayish-brownish shades. A light stripe runs from the back of the head to the end of the back of the animal. These bats are found from the south of Mexico to the northern part of Argentina, they are found in the Antilles, the southern Bahamas and the island of Trinidad. Chiroptera settle near the water in caves, rock crevices, and also climb into hollows and tree crowns. Large harelips feed on large insects and aquatic inhabitants of fresh water bodies: fish and crustaceans. Sometimes they hunt during the day.

Taken from: reddit.com

Taken from: mammalart.wordpress.com

  • Water bat (Dobanton's bat)(lat.Myotis daubentonii)

It got its name in honor of the French naturalist Louis Jean-Marie Daubanton. This small animal has a body length of no more than 4.5 - 5.5 cm and weighs from 7 to 15 g. The wingspan is 24 - 27.5 cm. The color of the fur is inconspicuous: dark, brownish. The top is darker than the bottom. The habitat of the animal extends from Great Britain and France to Sakhalin, Kamchatka and the Ussuri Territory. The northern border runs near 60°N, the southern border runs from Southern Italy, along the south of Ukraine, the lower Volga, through northern Kazakhstan, Altai, northern Mongolia, to Primorsky Krai. The life of a bat is connected with water bodies, although animals are found far from them. During the day, they can climb into a hollow or attic, and with the onset of night they begin to hunt. These bats fly slowly, often fluttering over the surface of water bodies, and catch medium-sized insects, mainly mosquitoes. If there is no reservoir nearby, then the water bats hunt among the trees. By destroying blood-sucking insects, water bats contribute to the fight against malaria and tularemia.

  • Brown earflap ( he is ordinary earflap)(lat. Plecotus auritus)

It has a body length of 4-5 cm and a weight of 6-12 g. The body is covered with uneven dull fur. Ushan habitats cover almost all of Eurasia, including Portugal in the western part of the range and up to the Kamchatka Peninsula in the eastern part. Also, brown earflaps are found in northern Africa, in Iran and central China. The lifestyle of bats is sedentary. These winged animals hibernate not far from their places of stay in summer time, inhabiting caves, various cellars, well log cabins and hollows of powerful trees, sometimes meeting in the attics of houses that were insulated for the winter. The big-eared bat flies out to hunt in complete darkness and hunts until the moment the sun rises.

  • Bat-dwarf ( he is small or small-headed bat) (lat. Pipistrelluspipistrellus)

Quite a numerous species belonging to the genus of the inexperienced, the family of smooth-nosed bats. This is the smallest species of bats in Europe. The body of the dwarf bat resembles the body of a mouse, its length is 38-45 mm, and the length of the tail is 28-33 mm. The mass of a dwarf bat is usually 3-6 g. The wingspan of this small bat reaches 19-22 cm. The body is covered with short, even hair, which is brown in the European form of the animal, and pale grayish-yellow in the Asian. Bottom part the body has a lighter color. The dwarf bat is widespread in Eurasia: from west to east from Spain to Western China, and from north to south from southern Norway to Asia Minor and Iran. This species of bats, in addition to Eurasia, is found in North Africa. Settles in places associated with human habitation, does not occur in the depths of forests and steppes, avoids caves, sometimes settles in hollows of trees. In winter, bats make seasonal migrations. Adult males are extremely rare in the spring-summer period, as they keep alone or gather in small groups separately from females and young individuals. Bats hunt after sunset. They fly low, in the lower part of tree crowns. The food of this tiny mouse is made up of small insects. The dwarf bat is one of the most useful bats in the Eurasian fauna.

  • Great horseshoe(lat. Rhinolophus ferrumequinum)

The dimensions of the animal are 5.2-7.1 cm, the wingspan reaches 35-40 cm, and the mass of the bat is 13-34 g. The color of the back varies depending on the habitat from dark chocolate to pale smoky fawn. The belly of the animal is whitish with a gray tint, lighter than the color of the back. Young animals have a monochromatic grayish color. The species is distributed in northern Africa (Morocco, Algeria), in Eurasia, the habitat of the horseshoe bat extends from Great Britain and Portugal through the mountainous regions of Central Europe, covers the Balkans, the countries of Asia Minor and Western Asia, the Caucasus, the Himalayas, Tibet, and ends in the south of China, Korean peninsula and Japan. On the territory of Russia, this bat is found in the Crimea and the North Caucasus, covering the range from the Krasnodar Territory to Dagestan. The habitual places of settlement of the horseshoe bat are mountain crevices, grottoes, cellars and ruins, as well as caves. In Central Asia, these animals live under the domes of tombs and mosques. Bats live relatively sedentary, making local seasonal migrations. They hibernate in damp caves and dungeons. They hunt low above the ground for moths and small beetles. The large horseshoe bat is listed in the Red Book of Russia.

  • Ordinary Vampire ( he is big bloodsucker, or desmode) (lat.Desmodus rotundus )

most numerous and known species real vampires. Largely due to this genus, bats have their bad reputation. An ordinary vampire really feeds on blood, including drinking human blood. This animal is small in size: the length of the bat is 8 cm, the weight is 50 g, the wingspan is 20 cm. Bloodsucking vampires live in large colonies. During the day they sleep in the hollows of old trees and caves. An ordinary vampire flies out to hunt late at night, when his future victims are immersed in a deep sleep. He attacks large ungulates, such as,. It can also bite a person sleeping in an open area or in a house with open and unprotected mesh windows. With the help of hearing and smell, vampire bats find a sleeping victim, sit on it or next to it, crawl to the place where the vessels come close to the surface of the skin, bite through it and lick the blood flowing from the wound. A special secret contained in the saliva, which the vampire wets the victim's skin, makes the bite painless and affects blood clotting. As a result, the victim may die from blood loss, as the blood for a long time flows out without turning. But not only this dangerous ordinary vampire. With its bite, the virus of rabies, plague and other diseases can be transmitted. Vampires also suffer from rabies. The spread of disease within the species is due, among other things, to the propensity of vampires to share regurgitated blood with hungry kin, a habit extremely rare among animals. Vampire bats live only in the tropics and subtropics of Central and South America. There are other kinds of vampires in other parts of the world, but they don't feed on blood. Thanks to these three species of bats, negative attitude to bats, which are not only harmless, but also useful animals.

Contrary to their name, with ordinary mice, their namesake bats are not even related. While ordinary mice belong to the order of rodents, bats are representatives of the order of bats, with little overlap with rodents. But where did the name "bat" come from? The fact is that bats were so named due to their small size and squeak, very similar to the squeak of mouse rodents.

Bat - description, structure. What does a bat look like?

The order of bats, to which bats actually belong, is especially remarkable in that they are, in fact, the only mammals capable of flying. Here, however, the order of bats includes not only flying mice, but also other equally flying brothers: flying dogs, flying, as well as fruit flying mice, which differ from their counterparts - ordinary bats, both in their habits and body structure.

As we have already mentioned, bats small size. The weight of the smallest representative of this species, the pig-nosed bat, does not exceed 2 grams, and the body length reaches a maximum of up to 3.3 cm. In fact, this is one of the smallest representatives of the animal kingdom.

Most big representative family of bats - a giant pseudo-vampire, has a mass of 150-200 g, and a wingspan of up to 75 cm.

Different types of bats have a different structure of the skull, the number of teeth also varies and largely depends on the diet of a particular species. For example, a tailless long-tongued leaf-bearer that feeds on nectar has an elongated front part. Nature has so wisely made it possible for him to have somewhere to hold his long tongue, which in turn is necessary for getting food.

But predatory bats that feed on insects already have the so-called heterodont dental system, which includes incisors, canines and molars. Small bats that eat even smaller insects have up to 38 small teeth, while large vampire bats have only 20. The fact is that vampires do not need many teeth, since they do not chew food. But they have sharp fangs that make a bleeding wound on the body of the victim.

Traditionally, bats, and almost all species, have large ears, which are responsible, among other things, for their amazing echolocation abilities.

The forelimbs of bats were transformed into wings during a long period of time. Elongated fingers began to serve as the frame of the wing. But the first finger with a claw remains free. With its help, flying mice can even eat and perform various other actions, although in some of them, such as smoke flying mice, it is not functional.

The speed of a bat depends on the shape and structure of its wing. They, in turn, can be very long, or vice versa with a slight elongation. Wings with a lower aspect ratio do not allow to develop greater speed, but they can be perfectly maneuvered, which is very useful for bats that live in the forest, and which often have to fly among the crowns of trees. In general, the flight speed of a bat ranges from 11 to 54 km per hour. But the Brazilian folded lip, from the genus of bulldog bats, is the absolute record holder in flight speed - it is capable of reaching speeds of up to 160 km per hour!

The hind limbs of bats have characteristic difference- they are deployed to the sides with the knee joints back. With the help of well-developed hind legs, bats hang upside down, in this, it would seem (as for us) such an uncomfortable position, they sleep.

Bats, like any decent mammals, have a tail, which also happens different lengths depending on the type. They also have bodies (and sometimes limbs) covered with wool. The coat can be flat, shaggy, short or thick, again depending on the species. The color also varies, usually whitish and yellowish shades predominate.

Honduran white bat with a very unusual coloring - white coat contrasts with yellow ears and nose.

However, there are also representatives of bats, with a body completely without hair - these are two bare-skinned bats from Southeast Asia.

Vision in bats leaves much to be desired, the eyes are poorly developed. In addition, they do not distinguish colors at all. But poor eyesight is more than compensated by excellent hearing, which, in fact, is the main sense organ in these animals. For example, some of the bats can pick up the rustle of insects crawling in the grass.

Their charm is also well developed. For example, female Brazilian folded lips are able to find their cubs by smell. Some bats smell their prey by smell, as well as by hearing, and can also distinguish between "their" and "alien" bats.

How do bats navigate in the dark?

It's simple, bats "see with their ears." After all, they have amazing property like echolocation. How does it work? And so, animals emit ultrasonic waves that are reflected from objects and return back through the echo. Incoming return signals are carefully recorded by bats, thanks to which they perfectly orient themselves in space and even hunt. Moreover, through reflected sound waves, they can not only see their potential prey, but even determine its speed and size.

To emit ultrasonic signals, nature has provided specially designed bats with mouths and noses. First, the sound originates in the throat, then it is emitted by the mouth and directed to the nose, radiating through the nostrils. The nostrils themselves have various bizarre outgrowths that serve to form and focus sound.

People can only hear how bats squeak, because the ultrasonic waves emitted by them are not perceived by the human ear. Interesting fact: earlier, when mankind did not know about the existence of ultrasound, the amazing orientation of bats in pitch darkness was explained by the presence of those extrasensory abilities.

Where do bats live

They live practically all over the world, of course, with the exception of the cold Arctic regions. But most of all they live in the tropics and subtropics.

Bats are nocturnal or crepuscular. During the day, they tend to hide in various shelters, both underground and above ground. They especially love caves, quarries, mines, they can hide in hollows of trees or under branches. Some bats even hide under bird nests during the day.

Bats live, as a rule, not in large colonies - up to several dozen individuals. But there are colonies of bats and much more populated, the record is considered a colony of Brazilian folded lips, boasting the presence of 20 million individuals. On the other hand, there are bats that prefer to lead a solitary lifestyle.

Where do bats winter

Part of the bats living in our temperate latitudes, with the onset of winter cold, similarly fall into hibernation. Some, like birds, migrate to warmer places.

Why do bats sleep upside down

It would seem that the very strange habit of bats to sleep upside down, hanging on their hind legs, has very practical reasons. The fact is that this position allows them to instantly fly. To do this, you just need to unclench your paws. Thus, less energy is wasted and time is saved, which can be very important in case of danger. The hind legs of bats are designed in such a way that hanging on them does not require the expenditure of muscle energy.

What do bats eat

Most bats feed on insects, but there are absolute vegetarians among them, who prefer pollen and plant nectar, as well as various fruits. There are also omnivorous bats that love both plant food and small insects, and some large species even prey on fish and small birds. Bats are excellent hunters, thanks in large part to their wonderful echolocation property, which we described above. Stand apart in terms of nutrition vampire bats, feeding exclusively on the blood of wild and domestic animals (however, they can also feast on human blood), hence the name.

Types of bats, photos and names

We give a description of the most interesting bats in our opinion.

Particularly interesting for its appearance, yellow ears and nose against a white coat. It also differs from other bats in the absence of a tail. The white leaf-bearer is very small in size, its body length does not exceed 4.7 cm, and its weight is 7 grams. Leaf-noses live in South and Central America, preferring as a home moist forests. They are herbivores and feed exclusively on fruit. They live in small colonies of up to ten individuals.

The giant evening bat is the largest bat found in Europe. The length of the body of the evening reaches 10 cm, and the weight is 76 grams. Has brown fur. Vespers usually lives in the forests, inhabiting the hollows of trees. You can meet her on the territory of our Ukraine. It feeds on large insects, beetles,. Also listed in .

It is notable for the fact that it is the smallest representative of the bat family. Its length is only 2.9-3.3 cm, and all is not more than 2 grams. However, it has rather large ears. The nose is very similar to the snout of a pig, hence the name of this species. The color of the pig-nosed bat is often gray or dark brown. They live in Southeast Asia, especially many of them live in Thailand and its neighboring countries. An interesting feature in the habit of pig-nosed mice is their collective hunting. They hunt in groups of up to five individuals at night. Due to their small numbers, pig-nosed bats are currently listed in the Red Book.

This species got its name due to the color of the fur, which has two colors - its back is red or dark brown, and the abdomen is white or gray. The bicolor kazhan lives over a wide range: from England and France to the Pacific Ocean. These bats are found not only in natural conditions, but also in human cities, they can quite live in the attics and cornices of houses. Night for them is the time of hunting for various small animals - flies, moths. Also endangered.

She is the night bat of Dobanton, named after the French naturalist Louis Jean Marie Dobanton. It has a small size, its length is not more than 5.5 cm, and its weight is up to 15 grams. Fur color is usually dark or brown. The habitat is the same as that of the kazhan, almost throughout the entire territory of Eurasia. The life of the water bat is closely connected with water bodies (hence the first name), it is near them that they like to hunt, especially mosquitoes often become their prey, of which there are also many near ponds and lakes.

Ushan is named so due to its amazing, by no means small ears. Ushan also lives in Eurasia, but is also found in North Africa. They like to live in mountain caves where they lead sedentary life.

It is also a small-headed bat - the smallest representative of bats in Europe, its body length is not more than 45 mm, and its weight is up to 6 grams. His body is really very similar to the body of an ordinary mouse, only with wings. Also, this species loves to settle in places next to a person.

This species is mountainous, as it loves to settle in mountain caves, canyons, crevices. Inhabits a wide geographic range - Eurasia and North Africa, wherever there is mountainous terrain can be found big horseshoe. They hunt moths and beetles.

It is thanks to this species that bats, which are generally very useful in the ecosystem (at least by killing mosquitoes), have their bad reputation. But here an ordinary vampire actually, like the famous Count Dracula, feeds on blood, including possibly human blood. But as a rule, various domestic animals become their victims and food supply: pigs. Vampires, as expected, go to their dark work at night, when their victims are sleeping. deep sleep. They imperceptibly sit on them, biting through the skin of the victim, from which they then drink blood. However, the bite of a vampire is inconspicuous and painless due to the special secret that they possess. But this is the danger, since the victim may die from blood loss. Also with a bite of a vampire, the rabies or plague virus can be transmitted. Fortunately, vampire bats live only in the subtropics of Central and South America; in our latitudes, bats are absolutely harmless.

How Bats Reproduce

Bats usually breed twice a year: in spring and autumn. Also different time the duration of pregnancy in bats, depending on the habitat and species. Females give birth at a time from one to three cubs.

The development of small bats occurs very quickly, in a week the cub grows twice. At first, the children feed on their mother's milk, and after a month of life they begin to hunt themselves.

How long do bats live

The lifespan of bats ranges from 4 to 30 years, again depending on the species and habitat.

Bat Enemies

Bats also have their own enemies, which in turn can hunt them. Usually this predator birds: Peregrine Falcons, Hobbies, and also Owls. Not averse to grabbing a bat will be a snake, marten and weasel.

But the main enemy of bats (however, like many other animals) is, of course, a person. The use of chemicals in crop production has significantly reduced the number of bats, many of the species are already listed in the Red Book, as they are on the verge of extinction.

Bat bite

All bats, with the exception of the common vampire, do not pose any danger to humans, and can only bite in self-defense.

Why are bats dangerous?

Again, with the exception of blood-sucking vampire bats, the other members of this order are completely harmless.

The benefits of bats

But the benefits of bats are much greater:

  • Firstly, they are the exterminators of many harmful and unpleasant insects (especially mosquitoes), which are carriers of possible diseases. They also eat butterflies with caterpillars - pests of fruit forests.
  • Secondly, nectar-eating herbivorous bats, along the way, contribute to the pollination of plants, carrying pollen over long distances.
  • Thirdly, the droppings of some bats are very useful as fertilizers.
  • And fourthly, bats are very important for science, especially when it comes to the study of ultrasound and echolocation.

How to get rid of bats

But still, if bats have settled near the house, for example, under the roof, despite all their benefits, they can be annoying, especially because of their squeak. To get rid of bats under the roof, in the country house or attic, you need to follow these instructions:

  • First you will need to find a place where the bats rest during the day. Then, after waiting for them to fly away for a night hunt, just close this place with a mount or something else.
  • You can try to smoke them out.
  • You can spray their habitats with special sprays whose smells will scare away mice.
  • Bats always fly to the left side of their hiding places.
  • Substances contained in the saliva of vampires are now used as drugs to prevent the formation of blood clots.
  • If in our culture bats are associated with vampires and other evil spirits, then in Chinese culture, on the contrary, they are symbols of harmony and happiness.
  • The bat is very voracious, so in an hour it can eat up to 100 mosquitoes, in terms of human measures, this is about the same as eating a hundred pizzas in an hour.

Bats video

And in conclusion interesting video about bats.

She lives in Australia. Eats fruits. He spends his best time of the day hanging upside down on a tree branch. At night it goes in search of food. In a word, she leads the very way of life that is put to her as a bat.

Scientists also know that the grey-headed flying fox (Pteropus poliocephalus), as they call it, is by no means silent. But even if the basic sounds of the language of bats are known, their translation still presents some difficulties. One thing is certain: the vocabulary of bats is sufficient. “Chip”, “cher-cher”, “bzzz” and so on and so forth - only 22 words. For example, trying to understand how monkeys talk, scientists counted only 17 sounds.

As for the syntax of the language of bats, it is reduced to a minimum, and mice are explained in an extremely concise and extremely precise form. They don’t speak irrelevant at all, each of the sounds that bats make has its own meaning and is associated with a certain situation of their being.

University of Melbourne professor John Nelson has been observing the habits of bats for a long time, trying to understand how bats communicate. After analyzing the recorded sounds, he divided them into four groups, each of which related to some one aspect of their lives.

The first group of sounds covers the relationship between mother and baby. A bat gives birth to one single cub once a year. Newborn bats already know how to "speak" in their own special, children's language. As soon as the mother moves away from him, a very short, thin squeak is heard. And after a few weeks, as soon as the baby feels more confident, he attracts the attention of the mother with a longer modulated cry. This is something like a joyful chirping, and sometimes in the mood and sobbing. When the mother finally returns, he sighs in relief and makes a funny short sound, as if swallowing a sip of water.

Approximately a month, the kids are already patiently waiting for the return of the parent, who went to the nearest fruit trees. She warns her offspring about her return with a quick tremolo, and the baby answers her with a whole series of short, thin cries.

Bats show a warlike instinct very early. The cub begins to make calls designed to intimidate neighbors. Already in a month, when he is worried about something, he makes a loud exclamation, similar to the one with which adults enter into fights, but with a higher frequency. From time to time between adult animals there are fights. This happens only when crowding and overcrowding in the colonies creates an atmosphere favorable for an explosion. The second group of words is just related to military operations. These are inflammatory calls and exclamations designed to intimidate an opponent.

Signs and beliefs associated with bats

Signs and beliefs associated with bats.

I am Alone nocturnal, bat-winged from an ancient family.

An unknown mouse hanging upside down on a tree.

I may be a bird of some rare breed

From the realm of ultra, from the city of echo echo hero?

No, I'm not a vampire, that's in the past... larva for dinner

(I'm on a diet), butterflies lean pate,

Fruit pulp - a supply of vitamins, colds ...

Kh..., the eternal draft in these European caves!... Over the years

Understanding has come, I am not alive alone as a butterfly,

I send a request to other worlds - ultrasound ...

But the echo is silent, the Great Mouse does not listen.

Where to attach the membranes of winged hands ???



***




If bats come out of their holes just after sunset and frolic in the sky, it portends clear and warm weather.

An old Scottish belief claims that if a bat takes off and falls to the ground again, it means that the witching hour has come, when witches have power over all human beings who are deprived of special protection. Of all the inhabitants of Britain, only the Scots saw some kind of connection between bats and people .



Here is another similar belief.

Modern residents of Tendo (Gold Coast) believe that the flocks of bats that leave the island every evening and rush to the mouth of the river are the souls of the dead, who reside on the sacred island and every evening must visit the dwelling of the good fetish Tano, who lives in the river of the same name. And the Wotjobaluk tribe in southeastern Australia believes that the life of a bat is linked to human life, and if you kill a bat, then human life will be reduced.



A similar superstition in Scotland and the north of England was associated with hares. It was believed that witches could turn into hares, and if the hare was wounded or killed, then the witch would also be found killed or wounded.


Thus, many witches and sorcerers were caught in Britain. In Russia, "superstitious people wore [bats] ... dried in their bosoms, for the sake of health or happiness. Or boiled with boiling water and such water was given to heal the sick, lying in a in a fever, children." In Eastern Siberia, after killing a bat, "they hang it on a thread from the ceiling and dry it for a long time; after that, they grind it into a powder that is mixed with horse feed. It prevents spoilage." Bats were called bats. It is believed that "bats are played - to the bucket.



A bat flies into the house - to trouble.

Encounters with a bat are the most terrible signs - there is nothing worse than an encounter with these mice.


If the bat screams or squeaks during the flight, expect failure.


If a bat attacked a person, death is on the way.


To see a bat that flaps its wings is to invite a terrible disease on yourself.

On the Isle of Man and in areas along the border with Wales, it was rumored that witches turned into bats and entered houses in this form. E. M. Laser tells the story of a man from Whibley Marsh who saw "something like a bat" fly into his room. He hit her with a handkerchief, but when he began to look for the corpse, he found nothing. Subsequently, he said that by this sign he realized that it was a witch from among those who then lived in the district, because a real bat would have died from such a blow for sure. A Scottish belief is recorded that when a bat soars up in flight and then drops sharply to the ground, this means that the hour of the witches has come - the time when they have power over people who do not have special protection against them.




Despite this association with witches, the Manx people consider it a very good omen if a bat falls on a person. Many women outside the island will doubt this, because of the general belief that if a bat flies or falls on a woman's head, it will certainly get tangled in the hair and will not get out until it is cut off. But this seems to be nothing more than superstition, not based on facts. The Countryman (Spring 1960) reports an experiment carried out in 1959 by the Earl of Cranbrook, with the kind help of three young women, who allowed him to throw a bat in his hair. Used four bats various kinds, and in all cases this creature managed to get out without difficulty, without making any disorder in the hair.

In Oxfordshire, it is considered a harbinger of death when a bat flies around the house three times. If bats appear in the early evening and fly around, as if playing, this is good weather.




Children, seeing a bat, often try to avert trouble by singing or saying:


Mouse, mouse, fly away

Fly away from here

Fly again tomorrow

Mouse, mouse fly away

Bat, fly to the sky

I will give you bread

I'll give you a sip of beer

Piece of wedding cake.





>


A bat falls on you - a sign of good luck.

Bringing a bat into the house is a sign of misfortune, a sign of death in the family.

A bat appears at a wedding - a bad sign.

The bat circles the house three times - a sign of death.

A bat flying out to “play” in the early evening is a sign of good weather.

The bat hit the building - a sign of rain.

To see a bat during the day is unfortunately.

Kill a bat - your life will be shorter.

Keeping a bat bone in your clothes brings good luck.

Keeping the right eye of a bat in your jacket pocket grants invisibility.

Carrying a powdered bat heart with you will prevent a person from bleeding to death or stop a bullet.

Wash your face with bat blood - gives you the ability to see in the dark.

Adding a few drops of bat blood to someone's drink makes the drinker more passionate.


SOURCES TO TAKE:


POEMS TAKE HERE:




HERE THEY ARE IN ALL THE GREAT!

Who flies with his arms dangling, sleeps upside down and sees with his ears? Any student will answer this riddle question: a bat. It is impossible to pick up another creature with the same amazing characteristics.

Silent rapid flight, lightning-fast turns and turns in the air, a phenomenal ability to avoid obstacles, a very repulsive muzzle with leathery growths, a nocturnal lifestyle all this somehow does not fit into the cute image of a harmless little animal.

It's amazing how persistent people's ancient antipathies are towards bats, which, in principle, are nothing bad man did not, but on the contrary brought and bring benefits.

Almost the first signs of "chiropterophobia" in world literature ("chiroptera" is Greek name order of bats) can be found in Aesop. One of the fables of the great Greek tells of a bloody war between animals and birds. Due to their dual nature, bats inhabitants of both heaven and earth took one side or the other depending on how they turned fighting. When peace triumphed in the animal kingdom, the former enemies unanimously condemned the two-winged bats (one would like to say: “two-winged ones”) and sentenced them to the darkness of the night, forbidding them to appear in nature in daylight.

The African tribes living in Cameroon still have the idea of ​​​​evil spirits yu-yu, hiding in caves and flying out of there for black deeds at night. Here is what the famous English zoologist Gerald Durrell wrote in his book The Overloaded Ark:

“The sounds coming from the darkness seemed ominous and scary. It was very cold in the cave, and we were all shivering... I ordered the hunters to stay where they were and went to the place where the floor of the cave began to sink... Going to the edge, I illuminated a large depression with a lantern, from which strange sounds came. At first, it seemed to me that the floor of the lower cavern broke loose and began to move towards me, accompanied by gusts of wind and a supernatural howl. I had a terrible thought that the evil perfume yu-yu do exist and I will now become a victim of their fury. But then I realized that all this black mass is made up of hundreds of little bats. They kept together like a swarm of bees; hundreds of these creatures, like a shaggy moving rug, densely covered the rocky ceiling of the lower cave.

Perhaps the most sinister place bats occupy in Mexican folklore. In the mythology of the descendants of the Mayan Indians living in the south of Mexico, the demon Hical plays a special role - the evil genius of cunning and deceit. He inhabits people with an unstable psyche or a bad character and subordinates them to his vile will. Anthropologists have established that the demon Hikal is a direct descendant of the bloodthirsty Mayan god, who demanded human sacrifice and was depicted as a small black creature with winged paws. The bat analogy is the most direct.

Why do we dislike bats so much? The simplest explanation lies in the habits and structure of bats. Too alien to us diurnal non-flying mammals they lead a way of life. Their transformed limbs with translucent membranes look too unnatural.

"Outrageous Discovery"

Of course, scientists could not help but pay attention to the strange behavior of bats, and the Italian naturalist of the 18th century, Lazzaro Spallanzani, was the first to take them seriously. In 1793, he, already a well-known scientist, conducted experiments on animals and unexpectedly discovered that, blinded, they fly as freely as sighted ones. After a series of experiments, the naturalist concluded that in blind bats, the organs of vision "are replaced by some other organ or sense, which is not inherent in people and about which we can never know anything." Sometimes great scientists make mistakes. Already on next year Genevan surgeon Louis Zhurin uncovered the secret of bats. As it turned out, bats become completely helpless if they ... tightly clog their ears.

Spallanzani pretended not to believe Zhurin, but secretly repeated his experiments year after year and became convinced that his Genevan colleague was right - bats actually “see” with their ears. Only after the death of Spallanzani in 1799 did publications about his experiments come out, but the scientific world took the news with hostility. See with ears? Incredible! “Maybe in that case, bats hear with their eyes?” a certain witty naturalist asked sarcastically in the press.

In 1938, two Americans, students of Harvard University, Donald Griffin and Robert Galambos, took up strange "ear-seers". Back in 1920, one of the acousticians suggested that bats emit high-frequency sounds and orient themselves in space by signals reflected from obstacles. By the end of the 1930s, a receiver for recording ultrasounds had already been invented. For two years, young scientists have been experimenting, capturing the signals emitted by bats, and proved: yes, echo helps bats fly. Moreover, many species of bats are guided in flight only by reflected sounds, not relying on sight at all. Soon a new term was born - echolocation.

Only two decades ago, experts began to realize that echolocation is not as simple as it seemed at first glance. Where previously there was an exhaustive acoustic scheme transmitting and receiving ultrasounds, amazing depths opened up, the most interesting was just beginning there. And to this day, the questions that bats “ask” are much more than answers.

Gourmets and Vampires

"... The little bat... squeaked angrily and, like all bats, looked very much like a shabby umbrella," J. Durrell wrote. A very good comparison. Only ... there are a lot of these “shabby umbrellas” in the world, and they are very different. They live everywhere, except in Antarctica they are not. They spread across the planet without difficulty, covering enormous distances. In Hawaii, for example, bats are clearly of American origin, and between North America and the Hawaiian Islands more than three and a half thousand kilometers.

Many islands in the Pacific animal world very scarce. And bats are everywhere. They, and even rats, sometimes all the island representatives of the class of mammals. Bats are the only native mammals in New Zealand. Rats, however, are also present there, but they are believed to have been brought by people. And the “shabby umbrellas” are their own, primordial ones.

It has been calculated: every tenth of the class of mammals on Earth is a representative of the order of bats. There are tens of billions of bats and fruit bats on our planet. Of the mammals, they are second in number only to rodents. In this colossal army there are 2 suborders, 19 families, 174 genera and about a thousand species and subspecies. Sometimes, in just one cave, myriads of bats settle down for the night. For example, New Cave in Texas holds up to 15 million (!) Mexican folded lips. When they fly out in search of food at dusk, it may seem to an outside observer that a major fire has started underground, as if clouds of black smoke are pouring out of a hole.

In fairness, we say that not all bats are necessarily nocturnal and not all excellent "hearers". Eg, flying foxes inhabitants of the tropics are frugivorous animals, and they absolutely do not need to hunt for insects “by sound”. These large bats - in one species the wingspan reaches one and a half meters - are completely devoid of the ability to echolocation, but their visual acuity is enviable: flying foxes are ten times sharper than humans.

The taste preferences of bats are extremely diverse. There are species that feed exclusively on nectar and pollen from flowers. Their muzzle is elongated, conical, the tongue is prohibitively long to make it easier to get to the delicacy. Like most bats, they do a good deed - they pollinate plants. Moreover, plants “know” about this: their flowers are the most ordinary-looking green, brown (bats do not have color vision), but the smell is sharp, sour, very attractive to some bats. They do not need another diet: nectar is rich in sugars, and pollen provides all vital substances - proteins, fats, vitamins, mineral salts.

Fruit bats also live in friendship with plants. The sticky remnants of the eaten dinner fruit pits, seeds stick to the flyers and are carried over long distances. Fruit trees, "designed" for bats, are optimally created by nature: fruits are discreet, but with a strong smell, there are no sharp thorns and hard leaves on the branches soft-bodied bats can fly fearlessly. Other animals as well as humans most often do not eat these fruits: hard, sour, even bitter, but bats eat them with pleasure.

Omnivorous bats for example, large vampires are true predators. True, they do not suck blood, despite the name. Here bats have some confusion: big vampires are not vampires at all, it is a sin to call them ghouls, but bloodsucking vampires they really only feed on blood. In the bat kingdom, big vampires, if not giants, then certainly tall ones for sure: a wingspan of up to 70 centimeters. These robbers attack frogs, rodents, birds, and even differ in cannibal manners - they eat their own relatives.

What are the tastes of the great angler (Noctilio leporinus) is clear from the name. This bat, found in Central and South America preys exclusively on fish. She soars at night over rivers and bays and carefully locates the surface of the water. As soon as a fin appears or the fish splashes its tail, the flying fisherman immediately dives, catches the prey with the claws of the hind legs and, lifting it into the air, puts it in the “bag” formed by the membrane between the legs. Then, in a more relaxed atmosphere, he takes to the meal: he eats part of the fish, and puts part in the cheek pouches for future use ...

The most repulsive way of feeding with bloodsucking vampires. They also live in South and Central America, suck blood from large ungulates and do not want to know other food. It is no coincidence that bloodsuckers have given rise to many legends, and they are sometimes credited - completely, however, unfairly - even with homicide.

It is known that a vampire bloodsucker is not able to suck out more than a tablespoon of blood in a day, and livestock in South America do not particularly suffer from bat attacks. The wounds heal quickly, and deaths from blood loss never happen at all. Another thing is that bloodsuckers sometimes spread dangerous diseases such as rabies. A few decades ago, a plague broke out in South America among horses. The cause of the death remained unclear, but many zoologists believed that it was bloodsucking vampires that carried the pathogens of the disease.

Finally, the most common among bats are insectivorous bats. Here are leather, and earflaps, and leaf-beards, and leaf-beards, and folded-lips, and horseshoes ... you can’t list them all.

The voracity of bats is comparable, perhaps, with the voracity of their "named brothers" - common mice, from the order of rodents. Brown leather, for example, can destroy about a thousand insects in an hour. And Mexican folded lips in only one state of Texas absorb a breathtaking amount of insects in a year with a total weight of 20 thousand tons!

To intercept!

Now it's time to get back to echolocation. Without the ingenious equipment that nature has provided bats, they would hardly have been able to hunt moths, flies and beetles, birds and fish so effectively.

Schematically, the matter looks like this: the animal emits very short ultrasonic pulses in flight, the echo reflected from stationary and moving objects returns to it, the sound picture is analyzed in the brain of the bat, iterating over the hunting options, choosing the optimal solution, then changing course, attacking the nearest an insect, and... the target is hit! By the way, quite often bats catch their prey with their wing, and then lick it off the membrane with their tongue. But they grab and fall!

The outlined scheme is very complicated. Secondly, ultrasonics in air quickly decay. Therefore, the optimal target detection range 4060 centimeters, one and a half to two meters is already the limit. Secondly, in a minute, a bat, it turns out, can catch up to 15 midges while the flight path changes dramatically: the animal dives, makes loops, flips, slides onto the wing, enters a tailspin, the aerobatics technique is amazing! And the flight speed is thirdly 2030 kilometers per hour! What a powerful “computer” a bat must have so that in the blink of an eye (in the “blink of an ear”!) as a rule, no more than half a second takes the most complex calculations, solve the problem of two non-uniformly moving bodies in three-dimensional space, determine in which direction, what size, at what speed and what the target is moving (an incidental task to determine the structure of the body surface by the reflected impulse) and give the appropriate commands to your limbs, the whole body: to intercept!

It may seem that echolocation for bats is fundamentally impossible. Let's imagine: the signal reaches the insect, it perceives the ultrasound, and it still has time to react, while the echo returns to the hunter. Has evolution not taken this possibility into account and given insects a chance for salvation, for an escape maneuver? Gave. There are chances. But meager. Some moths, having received an ultrasonic "warning", fold their wings and fall to the ground like a stone; others begin to abruptly change their flight course, scour the air. And yet, bats hunt almost unerringly! They have time to intercept the target in almost any situation.

The fact is that a bat orients itself in flight not by a sound beam or beam, but by a sound field: it evaluates many echo signals reflected from different surfaces. When something similar to prey appears in the field of sound vision, the nature of the signals changes: the flyer emits a series of ultrashort pulses that can instantly “ring out” the surrounding space on different levels echolocation. Thus, the duration of a single pulse of the brown bat ranges from 0.3 to 2 milliseconds. And in such an extremely short period of time (here the sound manages to run only 1060 centimeters), the animal manages to modulate the signal over a wide range: it changes the sound frequency by a whole octave and freely passes from a narrowly focused beam to a wide frontal beam. Naturally, the returned echo is simply saturated with information. Depending on the hunting conditions, a bat can emit from 10 to 200 or more such pulses per second. Tricks insects do not help.

In our technological age, it is easy to find a comparison for a bat: it quite bears the analogy with an all-weather fighter-interceptor equipped with a radar and an on-board computer. But it is even more interesting to apply the amazing properties of bats to humans: only in this way can one measure the distance separating them from us.

Imagine that we live in a world of pitch darkness. In our mouth we have a light source that hits 3040 meters. To navigate in the dark, we often blink this lamp, and besides, we constantly “run” over a wide range of frequencies: from infrared radiation to ultraviolet. We can focus a beam of light into a thin beam, or we can illuminate a vast space in front of us. Not only that: we tend to selectively use the visible spectrum we see in orange, then in blue, then in yellow light, thus, we have a system of constantly changing filters before our eyes. Let's learn something else. Some species of bats for example, the snub-nosed leafbeard straighten the skin folds around the mouth in flight, turning them into a trumpet: why not a megaphone? Developing the fantastic image of a "man-spotlight", let's draw the following analogy: the lamp in our mouth is also equipped with a reflector, and binoculars with enlightened optics are attached to our eyes.

We may or may not like this image, but the translation from the language of sound into the language of light more familiar to us illustrates auditory vision quite accurately and characterizes the abilities of our flyers abilities that have been improving for at least fifty million years (this is the age of the most ancient fossil bat, and it is extremely similar to modern bats).

In a sea of ​​sounds

Now the picture of echolocation seems to have become more understandable. Bats see beautifully and variously (you have to use such a strange phrase) with the help of ultrasound. But let's ask next question What is their visual acuity? How efficient is the onboard computer, the mouse brain?

Experiments have shown that bats are, in principle, capable of detecting in flight and bending around even ultra-thin threads - only 50 microns thick. But that's not all. It turned out that the mouse computer has ... an amazing memory!

They set up an experiment. They pulled the wires in such a way that a complex spatial structure, and a bat was launched into this three-dimensional maze. The animal flew right through it, naturally, never hitting the wires with its wing. Flew twice, thrice ... Then the wires were removed and replaced with thin invisible rays of photovoltaic devices. And what? The mouse flew through the maze again! She exactly repeated all the turns, all the spirals of her previous path, and not once did the photocell register an error, and now the labyrinth existed only in the imagination of the mouse. Of course, you can turn things around so that the experiment just refutes the existence of mouse intelligence: there are no delays, the direct path is free, who needs this aerobatics? But for scientists, the flight of a bat in an imaginary maze is the best proof of its adaptive abilities, its high behavioral skills and excellent memory.

The experimenters also gave the bats a quick wits task. A handful of metal or plastic objects of various shapes are thrown in front of a brown leather soaring in the air, and among them is a worm. Although in nature such tasks somehow do not occur to the kozhan, however, he snatches the worm from the garbage thrown in front of him without difficulty.

Bats are just swimming in a sea of ​​sounds. The echo replaces their sight, touch, maybe, to some extent, smell. And it is very good for us people that the dialogues of bats with environment run in the ultrasonic range. Otherwise... otherwise we would go deaf very soon. After all, bats scream very loudly. Acoustics have determined that the sound emitted by the brown bat and measured at its mouth is 20 times louder than the noise of a jackhammer operating at a distance of several meters from the experimenter. Some types of tropical bats talk very quietly, "whisper", but there are those that scream even three times louder than the brown bat.

Alvin Novik, an American bat specialist, MD, stated: “I determined the volume of the impulse of the Malayan hairless folded lip, an animal the size of a blue jay, at 145 decibels. This is comparable to the noise level of a jet aircraft taking off.”

Biologists are closely studying bats, these "dolphins of the night sky", according to the figurative definition of one naturalist: here we have in mind not only the properties of sound vision, but also outstanding mental capacity bats. Scientists hope that observing the behavior of bats will help answer a very important question: how does the animal's brain process and use the information it receives from the senses? And the answer to this question will eventually make it possible to understand the work of the human brain.