IIT JEE , AIEEE Forum - Articles Category , Community shelf - BATS HUNG UPSIDE DOWN. DO YOU KNOW WHY????

ishan.maheshwari

Why do BATS hang upside down ?

Scientific Name Chiroptera (Hand-wing)

There are few animals that depend on flying for moving about as much as a bat does. While birds and insects fly, too, they can manage to walk about if they have to. But the limbs and feet of a bat are not suited to walking. This means they also cannot stand easily. So when a bat is in its roost, the easiest thing for it to do is to hang on, head down!

The bat does a great many things that are quite remarkable. To begin with, the bat is a mammal --- the only mammal that can fly. The young are born alive and feed on milk from the mother. When the young are very small, the mother may carry them with her when she goes hunting!

Bats are nocturnal, which means they are active during the night and sleep during the day. Since they have to hunt for their food, you would imagine that bats would need exceptionally good eyesight. But actually, bats do not depend on their eyes for getting about. When bats fly, they utter a series of very high-pitched sounds. These sounds are too high to be heard by the human ear.

The echoes from these sounds are thrown back to the bat when it is in flight. The bat can tell whether the echo came from an obstacle near by or far away, and can change its course in flight in time to avoid hitting the obstacle!

Most people think all bats behave more or less the same way, but since there are more than 2,000 kinds of bats, you can see why this is not so. There are bats with a 15-centimetre wingspread and bats with a wingspread of nearly 2 meters.

The ?flying fox? (Pteropus giganteus) is the largest of Indian bats. They are usually seen fling at dusk. The ?fulvous fruit bat? (Rousettus leschenaultr) is gregarious by nature and roosts is noisy colonies of 10-2000! The ?Short nosed fruit bat? (Cynopterus sphinx) has white margined, nearly naked ears and divergent nostrils. The common species are not easily seen. The ?bearded sheath tailed bat? (Taphozous melanopogon) live in colonies, varying in numbers from 150-4000. The ?Indian false vampire? (Megaderma lyra) is dark ashgry with nose leaf truncated in appearance. There are a few other bats that are seen in India in various regions such as the ?great eastern horse-shoe bat?, the serotine, India pipistrelle, Tickell?s bat, common yellow bat and painted bat. The painted bat (Kerivoula picta) has bright orange colour. But this is rarely seen. The only other order having more species than bats (Chiroptera) are rodents (Rodentia).


	Vampire Bat-Desmodus rotundus
	Found only in South America. Habitat: tropical rainforests and subtropical regions.
	Total body length is only 3.5 inches! Weight 1 oz. 8-10 razor sharp teeth - all in the front of the mouth. 8?
	wingspan.
	Able to stand on hind legs, and unlike many bats can walk, hop, run and climb.
	Has one baby at a time, which is born completely blind
	Roosts individually or in colonies of up to thousands of bats.
	Lives 9 years in the wild, 20 years in captivity.
	Will share food with orphaned pups or sick bats, if they don?t eat for 2 days it will die.
	Cows and other domestic animals are their main source of blood. Humans do not smell good to bats! When they
	bite, they make a very shallow cut that does not hurt or disturb their sleeping victim.
	Only drink 8 teaspoons of blood or less a night.
	Vampire bats can carry rabies, but it is rare.

	Indian Flying Fox - Pteropus giganteus
	Found on many islands in India, Nepal, Burma, Sri Lanka, and others near the Indian Ocean.
	Habitat is forests and swamps. It is essential for this bat to be near a large body of water.
	Body length is 9?. Females weigh 2 pounds, males can weigh from 2.8-3.5 pounds. Wingspan = 5.5 feet. No tail.
	Have very large well-developed eyes, but can only see in black and white.
	Spends most of the night feeding, returning to their roost at 4a.m. Does not echolocate, but strong sense of smell
	guides them to fruit.
	During hot weather, these bats fan themselves with their wings to stay cool.
	The first place they go to when feeding is the rotten, squishy fruit! This helps clean the trees and keeps away fruit
	flies.
	Their mouth is like a juicer: they squish fruit around in their mouth and only swallow the juice and pulp. They spit
	out the seeds, and help replant the forest.
	Pups are carried by their mothers at the age of 6-7 weeks, and can fly on their own at 11 weeks.
	Their favorite foods are the mushy, smelly fruit - mangoes, bananas, papayas, figs, flowers, and some insects.
	According to Indian folk medicine, a wing bone from a flying fox tied to the ankle with a tail hair from a black cow
	results in painless childbirth.

	Island Flying Fox or Variable Flying Fox - Pteropus hypomelanus
	Occurs only on small islands from Bay of Bengal to New Guinea and Solomon Islands
	This is the smallest of the 63 species of flying fox - males weigh 1-2 pounds. Body length 10-16?, wingspan 3.5-4
	feet.
	Have excellent eyesight and keen sense of smell -which helps them search for fruit and nectar.
	May travel 20 miles in search of food. Can be very destructive to plants.
	These animals are essential to the survival of rainforests: up to 40% of tree species depend of these bats for seed
	dispursal or pollination.
	Pups may weigh 10% of mother?s body weight (if that were a human, our babies could weigh 15 pounds!)
	In some cultures, these bats are hunted for food.

	Straw-Colored Fruit Bat - Eidolon helvum
	Habitat is the forests and mountains of Southwestern Arabian Peninsula, forests and
	savannah zones of Africa south of the Sahara and Madagascar.
	Body length is 5.5-8.5?. Short tail, wingspan up to 2.5 feet.
	These bats can not echolocate, but find food though vision and sense of smell.
	They feed primarily on fruit, and are seed dispursers.
	Live in huge colonies numbering 100,000 to 1,000,000 individuals and can be very noisy
	and restless during the daytime.
	Hunted by humans in some areas, protected in others.

	What BATS eat ?
	Carnivores: Bats that eat other animals have large bodies and broad wings to beable to pick up their prey.
	Frogs, lizards, mice, birds, scorpions, and insects are some examples of what a carnivorous bat might eat.
	Piscivore: A bat that eats fish is a and piscivore. These bats have large bodies huge feet, and oily fur that is
	water repellent. Fish eating bats are able to detect a fin sticking out of the water a mere millimeter!
	Sanguivore: This is a bat that drinks blood. The three vampire bats are all found in South America. Two
	species only drink the blood of birds, the other drinks mammal blood. They only drink around 8 teaspoons per night.
	Insectivore: All bats in Colorado are insectivores. One bat can eat 1,200 mosquitoe-sized insects each hour!
	One colony of bats can eat 500,000 insects each night.
	Frugivore: Fruit-eating bats have an excellent sense of smell and strong jaws. Some seeds are dependent on
	bats and will not germinate unless they pass through a bat?s stomach.
	Nectavore: Nectar-drinking bats have long hairs on their tongue, just like a cat! Some bats have a lock-and-key
	relationship with flowers. Their noses are perfectly adapted to fit into just one type of flower. They get a tasty
	treat of nectar, and help pollinate the plant at the same time.


Interesting Facts
	There are nearly 1,000 kinds of bats
	on every continent except Antarctica.
	There are 40 species of bats in the United
	found States, and 18 in Colorado.
	Bats can be divided into 2 separate groups
	- Megabats (flying foxes) and Microbats.
	90% of all bats are microbats and weigh
	less than one ounce
	Megabats can only be found in Africa,
	Asia, and Australia
	Bats have only one baby a year. A baby
	bat is called a pup.
	A group of bats is called a colony, or
	camp.
	In North America, bats are the most
	endangered land mammal
	Bats are considered nature's best bug
	control.
	Trees in Africa and South America depend
	on bats to spread their seeds.
	Night blooming flowers depend on bats for
	pollination.
	Bats are the only mammal that can fly.
	The largest bat has almost a 6 foot wing
	span
	Insect eating bats use echolocation to find
	and catch food.
	Bats in cooler climates hibernate or migrate
	during the winter
	Besides night insects, bats eat fish, frogs,
	fruit, nectar, and blood from other
	mammals

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