BATS

Bats are extraordinary creatures with fascinating behaviors that often defy expectations, ranging from giant newborn pups to strange diets and astonishing longevity.

Key facts

1. Deceptively Heavy Babies

A mother Pipistrelle bat can give birth to a pup weighing up to 25% to 33% of her own body weight—imagine a human mother giving birth to a 30-kilo baby!

2. Male Dads That Lactate

In rare cases of paternal lactation, male Dyak's fruit bats can actually feed their young straight from their own mammary glands.

3. Speed Demons Of The Sky

The Mexican free-tailed bat can achieve short burst speeds of up to 100 mph (160 km/h), placing them among the fastest flyers in the animal kingdom.

4. Surprising Belly Buttons

Despite their small, furry appearance, almost all bats actually possess belly buttons, just like human beings.

5. They Love Tequila

Wild agave plants—which serve as the main ingredient for making tequila—rely heavily on bats as their primary pollinators.

6. Not Blind At All

The common phrase 'blind as a bat' is completely false; all bats can see, and some tropical species even possess great night vision or can detect ultraviolet light.

7. Scorpion-Eating Badasses

Pallid bats regularly hunt and eat venomous scorpions while remaining completely immune to their painful stings.

8. Living Way Too Long

For such tiny animals, bats live an unusually long life, with the oldest recorded wild bat—a Brandt's myotis—reaching an incredible 41 years of age.

9. Spider Roommates

Tiny woolly bats living in Africa safely roost inside colonial spider webs and even help transport young spiders to new locations.

10. Honking Hammer-Heads

Male hammer-headed bats feature giant, goofy-looking droopy noses and enlarged rostrums used to emit loud honking calls to attract females.

Would you like to put your new knowledge to the test by taking a quick quiz on bats?