Maternity colony (bats) Maternity colony (bats) A maternity colony refers to a temporary association of reproductive female bats for giving birth to, nursing, and weaning their pups. The colonies are initiated by pregnant bats. After giving birth, the colony consists of the lactating females and their offspring. After weaning, juveniles will leave the maternity colony, and the colony itself will break apart. The size of a maternity colony is highly variable by species, with some species forming colonies consisting of ten or fewer individuals, while the largest maternity colony in the world in Bracken Cave is estimated to have over 15 million bats.
Infrared sensing in vampire bats diameter neurons in the trigeminal ganglia (TG) that are unique to vampire bats and extremely similar to those found in IR-sensitive snakes. Although the morphological organization of neurons suggests convergent evolution with IR-sensing snakes lineages, it remains unclear what the exact neural pathway is for infrared sensing in vampire bats. Thermography, a method which produces pictures of the distribution of temperatures on an object, was used to investigate temperature variation across facial structures of the common vampire bat. The nasal structure has a temperature of 9 °C lower than the rest of the face. The thermal insulation of the nasal