Celebrate Bat Appreciation Month with 10 Spooky Facts About Bats!
Nothing sets the scene for spooky season quite like a silhouette of bat wings against a full moon. They’re the classic sidekick of vampires, you won’t find haunted house decor without them, and to be honest, they’re just plain cool!
However, even though real bats are a lot less Dracula-adjacent, there are still some super-surprising and amazing things to know about them. So, in honor of Bat Appreciation Month, and without further ado, here are ten facts about bats that are genuinely impressive, a little unsettling, and yes, a bit spooky, but in the best way.
1. One bat can eat its weight in insects in a single night.
One little brown bat can gobble up several thousand mosquitoes, moths, and other insects in just one night of hunting. Multiply that by an entire colony, and you’ve got free insect pest control for life!
2. Some of them are shockingly fast.
Did you know there’s a bat that can fly faster than a cheetah can run? It’s true; the Mexican free-tailed bat holds the title for fastest mammal on the planet, with researchers clocking its speed near 100 mph in level flight. And that’s using nothing but wing power!
3. Their echolocation is inspiring technology.
Bats “see” in the dark by sending out sound waves and reading the echoes that bounce back. It’s a skill precise enough to catch a moth mid-flight. They’re so good at it that researchers are studying them to help develop navigation devices for the visually impaired.
4. There are 1,400+ species of bats.
Depending on who you ask, bats account for nearly a fifth to a quarter of all mammal species on Earth. They’re second only to rodents, so if you thought bats were simply rats with wings, think again! From fruit-eating megabats to tiny insect hunters, the sheer variety of bats is astounding.
5. They vary from really big to teeny tiny.
On one end of the bat spectrum, you have the bumblebee bat, weighing in at less than a penny and small enough to perch on your thumbnail. On the other end, you have the giant flying fox bats (genus Pteropus and Acerodon jubatus), which can weigh up to three and a half pounds and have a wingspan stretching up to five and a half feet.
6. They’re the only true flying mammal.
Where flying squirrels and sugar gliders, well, glide, bats actually fly. They have a flexible skin membrane between their long finger bones, giving them the agile power of flight. And they’re the only mammal on earth that can do so.
7. Their lifespan is longer than you think.
For an animal small enough to fit in your palm, some bats have a surprisingly long lifespan. Many species regularly live 10–20 years in the wild. But the longest recorded lifespan of any bat is that of a tiny Siberian bat (Myotis sibiricus) that weighed only a few grams. It was recaptured by researchers decades after it was originally tagged and found to be at least 41 years old. Bats are an outlier to the rule that larger mammals tend to live longer than their smaller counterparts.
8. Baby bats are called pups.
Most female bats have just one pup a year, and we don’t think it’s the kind you’d want to adopt from your local animal shelter. However, their low reproductive capacity explains the difficulty bat species have with repopulation when a colony is disturbed or a species becomes endangered. They have a much rougher go at getting their numbers back up compared to, say, a mouse, which can have litters of six or more several times a year.
9. Texas is home to the largest bat cave.
Bracken Cave, located on the Bracken Cave Preserve near San Antonio, Texas, holds the largest known bat colony in the world: a summer maternity colony of Mexican free-tailed bats with a count in the millions. When they exit the mouth cave at sunset, they’re visible from miles away!
10. Only three species actually drink blood.
We hate to break it to you, but there is some truth to the blood-sucking bat lore. But out of the 1,400+ species, only three actually feed on blood, and they’re found in Latin America, not your Alabama attic. They also don’t technically “suck” blood; they lap it up after making a small bite. We know—not much better.
So, Are Bats Pests?
Technically, yes; bats can become a nuisance wildlife issue when they move into an attic or chimney, and the droppings they leave behind can pose a real health risk. But bats are also protected in many situations and require specialized, humane removal methods that go beyond standard pest control. That’s part of the reason why Vulcan Termite & Pest Control doesn’t offer bat removal services ourselves.
If you’re hearing scratching in the attic or spotting bats at dusk around your Birmingham home, we recommend reaching out to Critter Control of Birmingham for safe, humane bat removal. For everything else creeping, crawling, or flying around your home, give us a call at (205) 663-4200. We’ve got you covered.