Hi.

Bruce Wayne.



So, i've been thinking a lot about Bats recently. How they fly around, how they squeal, how they hang upside down, and how most of them have poor eyesight, but can hear well by flapping their wings at speeds of up to 19,000 miles an hour.

And I know many of you have wanted to know more about bats, and have been driving me 'batty' with questions about bats. So, I thought i'd respond to this growing trend by starting a thread where you can all brush up on your knowledge of bats, and contribute your own bat-related anecdotes! Fingers crossed, this thread could go on forever!

Batfacts!

- Bats are the only mammal that can fly.

- The scientific name for bats is Chiroptera meaning "hand-wing".

- The largest bat has almost a 36 foot wing span.

- The smallest bat weighs less than 3 grains of sugar.

- There are almost 1000 species of bats and three are considered vampires.

- Bats have only one baby a year.

- Batman and Robin make a dynamic duo, but it might shock the Caped Crusaders to
learn that real bats and robins are sometimes mortal enemies!

- The so-called 'real bats' used in the recent flick Batman Begins were not bats at all, but were small Sparrows that had been painted black!

Bat Pics!



This is the Greater Horseshoe Bat - arguably the ugliest creature in the entire world.



A proper bat



Bat with a baby

Bat Incest!

Recent research in Nature Magazine (www.nature.com/nature) suggests that female greater horseshoe bats share male mates with their mothers and grandmothers.



Full story continues (news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/t...245852.stm):

This serves to bind families together, but avoids the dangers of inbreeding. The females live together in groups segregated from the opposite sex, but gang together to prowl for males once the mating season arrives.

Scientists from the University of Bristol and Queen Mary in London made the discovery using genetic techniques to construct family trees for the bats. Most female greater horseshoe bats (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum) seek out the same male to mate with year after year.

The bats produce only one offspring each year, so each animal represents the outcome of a separate mating.

Stephen Rossiter, of Queen Mary, University of London, and colleagues used genetic typing to compile the family trees of some 452 bats at Woodchester Mansion in Gloucestershire, UK. The researchers mapped male partners on to pedigrees of female bats to examine patterns of pairings down the years.

They found that relatives on the maternal line shared male partners more often than would be expected by chance. In all, they detected 20 groups of related females sharing mates, with two to five individuals in each of these groups.

Dr Rossiter believes that by sharing sexual partners, the greater horseshoe bat "strengthens social ties and promotes greater levels of cooperation within the colony".


More batfacts to come!

So you like bats, huh?

TheFrog said:

Sorry, I'm leaving now

Some wonderful pictures of bats all round, and thank you Natisse, Pandy and Raine.

Not quite so sure about the relevance of that woman with a big nose and the baseball racquets.

More bat facts:

- Bats employ a sonar system which is 1,000 times more sophisticated than any of man's similar inventions.

- There are an estimated 590 trillion bats on earth.

- The 'bat wing' is actually made up of four different wings, a bit like this crappy old aeroplane:



- Where bats hang isn't random. Each has has own berth on the wall and they roost near a cave entrance or on a particularly warm pocket of the ceiling. They are extremely loyal to their caves of birth and hibernation.

- Bats can hibernate at will. If there is a food shortage due to weather changes, bats can shut down their metabolism and sleep until better times.



A bat

Teacher will love this thread!


A bat flew on my head the other night, I was totally freaked out by it..
[Edited 9/20/05 4:05am]

Malayan Flying Fox (at Disney's Animal Kingdom)

While we were there (Animal Kingdom) 3 years ago we saw some of these bats, they are the largest bats in the world, with wingspans that can stretch 6 feet. While standing there watching the bats, a woman with a *very* Brittish accent noticed one of the bats cleaning itself. She kept going on and on "he's playing with himself. He's licking his testicles" My hubby and I still bust into giggles whenever we look at those pictures

PANDURITO said:

i love you, man!

TheFrog said:

This thread is the reason why I'm leaving the org!

Has anyone seen the Frog since he started this thread?

Exhibit A:

http://encarta.msn.com/me...g_Bat.html

IstenSzek said:

i like bats

IstenSzek said:

tho' i like the bit at the bottom (for the deaf?) where it says, "Sound Effect. Ominonous music playing in background."

Ominomononmous?



Ominous.

EskomoKisses said:

cute.

REDBABY said:

Are you sure it was a bat, and not a sparrow?

ChunkyLaFunga said:

Who said anything about bats?