How much do you know about the world's only flying mammal?
Don't worry: Bats won't nest in your hair!
Photograph by Joel Sartore, National Geographic Creative
Blind as a bat? No way! B
How much do you know about the world's only flying mammal?
Don't worry: Bats won't nest in your hair!
Photograph by Joel Sartore, National Geographic Creative
Blind as a bat? No way! Bats' eyes work just fine!
Photograph by Valeriy Kirsanov, Dreamstime
Bats are important! They are pollinators that are responsible for dispersing seeds that grow into around 300 different plant species.
Photograph by Michael Nichols, National Geographic Creative
MYTH: Bats are blind.
BUSTED! Bats’ eyes are small and sometimes poorly developed, but they work just fine. Megabats—larger bats that include fruit bats—search for food using sight and smell. Micro-bats—which include the smaller, familiar snub-nosed bats—mainly hunt by echolocation. Using this system, bats send out sound waves and listen for the echo to bounce off insects and other objects.
MYTH: Bats in your house are bad luck.
BUSTED! Bats are probably associated with bad luck because of a vampire legend. Vampires exist only in books and movies, and bats can’t cause bad luck. That doesn’t mean you want one in your house; it could spread certain diseases. Bats in your yard, however, are great—a little brown bat can eat up to a thousand mosquito-size insects in an hour. In fact, bats are so lucky for humans that many people build bat houses to attract them to their yards.
MYTH: All bats have rabies.
BUSTED! According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only 5 to 6 percent of bats captured for testing have rabies. That said, as with any wild animal, don't handle bats unless it's necessary.
MYTH: Bats fly toward and get tangled in people’s hair.
BUSTED! Bats hang upside down from their roosts and tend to drop down and flap their wings before they start to lift off in flight. So though it may appear the animals are swooping down on you and want to nest in your hair, they're not. In fact, bats don’t make nests.
MYTH: Bats suck people’s blood.
BUSTED! While vampire bats have been known to bite people, they primarily feed on cattle. These bats actually only weigh two ounces and will take just a small amount of blood when they bite the cattle. The bats’ saliva h