Humans may be the strangest mammal of all, but bats come a close second. They're the only mammal with natural flight and boast a ridiculous range of adaptations to their diet, habitat and lifestyle - such as...
- The Bat With Spy-Style Suction Cups
- The Flying-Fox With a Mobile Nose
- The Sinister, Cloak-Swirling, Neck-Biting False Vampires
- The Incredible Lactating Male Bat
- The Water-Skimming Fishing Bats
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| Bats come in many shapes and sizes... (Cparks) |
The Bat With Spy-Style Suction Cups
If you picture a roosting bat, it's probably hanging upside down under a bride, in a cave or beneath a branch. Spix's disk-winged bat takes a different approach - they are the only known bats that sleep with their heads up, making their beds inside rolled up tropical leaves.
This unusual method of resting wouldn't work for most bats, but (like spies in a movie) the Spix's disk-winged bat has tiny suction cups on their thumbs and ankles. These cups can be controlled by the bat using its muscles, meaning that their vacuum can be adjusted or released whenever it suits the flying mammal - and they can easily grip on to smooth surfaces (including human fingernails!)
Despite the espionage equipment of the Spix, they are rather social creatures. Researchers have observed them making several distinct calls, one of which is used to let other bats know about a good resting spot. The others make a different call in response, allowing them to home in as though they're playing a game of "Marco-Polo!"
The Flying-Fox With a Mobile Nose
Flying foxes are a type of large fruit bat that generally relies on sight and scent rather than sound. The Queensland tube-nosed bat takes this to the absolute extreme with a set of protruding, tubular, independently mobile nostrils!
The nostrils of the bat have intrigued researchers - not only are they capable of moving in independent directions, they can be individually closed at will. It was once believed that they acted as snorkels for the bat when it was gorging on messy meals of fruit, but observations revealed that it was a precise eater.
The nostrils of the bat have intrigued researchers - not only are they capable of moving in independent directions, they can be individually closed at will. It was once believed that they acted as snorkels for the bat when it was gorging on messy meals of fruit, but observations revealed that it was a precise eater.
A more recent suggestion is that that the nostrils allow the bat to create a three-dimensional scent-map of an area, repositioning the nostrils to triangulate smells... and to find delicious figs with ease!
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| Cloak-like wings, neck bites... (Ghavam Cheraghali) |
The Sinister, Cloak-Swirling, Neck-Biting False Vampires
Not every bat sticks to insects, but the false vampire bats (biologists leapt to conclusions) don't sup blood - they prefer meat for their meals!The greater false vampire (or spectral) bat is an impressive and sinister beast. They can have a wingspan of over three feet with a wicked, wolfish face. What does such a creature hunt, you ask? Anything from insects to rats, birds and even other bats - they've even killed Amazonian parrots. It's thought that they hunt using both sound and scent, even homing in on distress calls of smaller bats - researchers have found their nets being raided by spectral bats!
The bats even kill their prey in a sinister fashion, dropping down from above and trapping victims inside the cloak of their wings. The bat seals the deal by biting the head and neck of their tangled prey like a jaguar!
The Incredible Lactating Male Bat
The Dyak fruit bat of Malaysia and Borneo may be fairly small (adults weighing in slightly under 100g) but researchers couldn't fault its commitment to family. Captured males examples of this diminutive flying fox sported enlarged nipples that produced small quantities of milk!
Now, to be fair it's not actually known why the males lactate or if they actually nurse their young - though it might be a good way of splitting the resource burden of milk production with the female and increasing the food available to their pups. Another theory is that their fruit diet contains a large amount of phytoestrogens (similar to estrogen) that could produce female characteristics.
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| A surprising way to go... (Kyaw Tun) |
The Water-Skimming Fishing Bats
Have you heard of fishing eagles? It turns out that some bats trawl for their dinner as well!
One such nocturnal angler is the long-fingered bat of Europe. This tiny mammal (it weighs around 9g and reaches around 4cm in length) skims across the surface of the water and plucks equally tiny surface-feeding fish into the air. If the fishing is poor, the bat will happily grab aquatic insects instead!
Even weirder is the greater bulldog bat of South America. This fly-by-night fisherman catches prey by trawling its large hind feet tipped with wicked claws through promising waters - the bat can use echolocation to spot the ripples or fins of fish, or simple rake water where fish have previously been caught.
Caught fish are killed then stored in cheek pouches (allowing feeding inf flight if needed) while the bat itself is kept dry during these sweeps by a water-repellent oily coating on the tail and wings - it has a built in fisherman's oilskin!
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