Flying Mammals

Bats are the only mammals capable of true flight. They belong to the order Chiroptera, which means hand – wing. Instead of front legs, bats have wings made of skin which are   supported by the bones of the arms and hand.

There are about 977 species of bat. Flying foxes are among the largest. These bats are 45cm long , have wings that span 1.7 and weigh up to 1.6kg. The Kitti’s hog-nosed bat, which lives in Thailand, is the smallest. It weighs g( less than a table tennis ball ) and is only 2.9cm long , making it the smallest of all mammals.

Bats sleep during the day and wake up at night when they go in search of food. Most bats are insect-eaters- a little brown bat can catch 1,200 insects an hour – but others eat fruit or nectar from plants. Some larger species catch frogs, birds and fish.

Many bats live in large groups called colonies. Bracken Cave in Texas contains the world’s largest bat colony, about 20 million animals. This is one of the densest populations of any mammal and there can be as many as 5,000 newborn babies per square meter. These bats eat 1,000 tones of insects every night.