BATS OF TENNESSEE AND THE WORLD What are

BATS OF TENNESSEE AND THE WORLD What are bats? Do they serve a purpose in this world? Bats are some of the most fascinating, beneficial and likable animals. Yet they are often feared and persecuted. Bats are mammals like you and me. They are not rodents, reptiles or birds. They give live birth, they have hair on their bodies and they nurse their young. Bats were thought to have evolved from tree dwelling shrew-like ancestors. Many people have assumed that bats are blind. However, they do have eyes and see relatively well, so they will not fly in your hair. . Nor will they suck your blood. You have probably heard people say “ Your driving me batty. ” Bats don’t cause people to go insane. Bats do not have any more incidence of rabies than any other animal. In China, the word bat is Fu, which means good luck and happiness. There are nearly one thousand species of bats that amount to approximately a quarter of all mammal species. They are found everywhere except extreme desert and polar regions. There are some forty species that live in the United States and Canada. Worldwide, bats are the major predators of night flying insects, including mosquitoes and numerous pests. Although seventy percent of bats eat insects, many of the tropical species feed exclusively on fruit or nectar. There about fourteen species of bats that reside in Tennessee. Lets take a look at some of them.

One of our most common bats is the Big Brown Bat. They live in buildings nearly everywhere. People who find these bats often panic assuming them to be dangerous and rabid. However, less than half of one per cent are carriers of rabies. Rabid bats are rarely aggressive. The only way to contract it is by picking up a sick or injured bat on the ground. The best thing to do is to leave it alone.

The largest bat in Tennessee is the Hoary Bat. They have 16” wingspans and with their long silky fur are among the most handsomely colored bats. These bats never use caves, but choose to reside in trees, especially evergreens, using the foliage and cavities for hibernation. They feed on moths and the female usually gives birth to twins in May through July.

The Red Bat roosts in deciduous trees, usually in the foliage and under the bark. They can give birth to twins, triplets and even quadruplets. They have long angora like bright orange to yellowish brown fur. They are solitary bats and they are only together during fall mating season. They are adapted well to surviving low temperatures by hibernating in tree hollows as far north as Ohio. They often arouse and feed in January during 50 -60 degree days. These bats have also been clocked at 40 mph.

The Evening Bat is another common inhabitant of buildings. It is also found roosting behind loose bark, tree hollows and even spanish moss. Females usually give birth to one young. This is a small brown bat that lacks distinctive characteristics.

The Silver Haired Bats also roost in bark crevices and small tree hollows where their coloration provides camouflage from enemies. They travel south for the winter. They are slow fliers and usually feed on a wide variety of insects found over clearings and ponds. This is one of the most abundant bats in April. The female gives birth to twins in June or July.

This is Hubbards Cave located in Tennessee where bats from much of the southeast United States seek shelter. Most American bats must find shelter in a cave or an abandoned mine before winter sets in. They hibernate until spring on stored fat reserves.

Protection of essential caves is vital to bat conservation in many places.

An enormous gate was built at Hubbards Cave to protect its bats from human disturbance and vandalism. This permanent protection was gained through a joint effort of several agencies.

Each type of bat has its own unique requirements for living space. This is a Rafinisque’s Big-Eared Bat. It once formed colonies in the entrances of many southeastern caves. Therefore, they were exceptionally vulnerable to disturbance. There is only one cave-dwelling colony still existing.

Bats are very beneficial to humans because they consume large amounts of insects in a single night. These are southeastern bats returning to a cave. Mouse-eared bats like these eat up to 600 insects per hour or over 3, 000 insects in one night per bat. Most experts agree many bats eat one-fourth to one-half their weight in insects each night.

The most often encountered bat species in caves is the hibernating Pipistrelle. It is covered with condensed moisture droplets in this picture. Theses small bats are solitary hibernators. They are yellow to drab brown in color and one of the smallest eastern bats. Females give birth to two young born in May or June. They can live in caves, tunnels, rock crevices, buildings, and wooded areas near water. This bat has a slow erratic flight. All hibernating bats are extremely vulnerable to human disturbance. Thousands die each winter when visits by amateur cavers force them to awaken and waste their stored fat reserves which are needed to keep them alive until spring. A hibernating bat can survive on a few grams of fat for the 5 -6 month hibernation period. Bats lose one-fourth to one-half their pre-hibernation weight during hibernation. The temperatures of bats fluctuates from 100 degrees F when active to 40 -60 degrees F in hibernation. Their heart rate ranges from 1, 000 beats per minute when active to 12 beats per minute in hibernation.

This endangered Gray Bat lives in caves year round and therefore is especially vulnerable. These hibernate in nine critically important caves that house 95% of the species population in winter.

They choose hibernating sites where the temperatures are between 42 -52 degrees F. They forage over water along rivers or lakes within 15 feet of the water surface. Mayflies are a major item of their diet. Their average lifespan is 14 -15 years.

Gray bat sanctuary’s have helped re-establish hundreds of thousands of bats. This one is located on the Norris Dam Reservation.

The Indiana bats were once abundant through out much of eastern North America. They are now endangered and government surveys document a 55% decline in just eight years. They typically spend the winters in just a few caves, usually packed into dense clusters. 85% hibernate in six locations. Females give birth to one pup in June, usually under loose bark of trees, especially shagbark hickories found along stream banks. These bats primarily feed on moths. Their longevity record is 13 years and 10 months.

The most abundant and widespread species is the Little Brown Bat. Like most other bats they hunt flying prey by navigating with pulses of sound emitted through the mouth. Their sensitive ears hear the echoes reflected from even tiny insects. Using their sonar high frequency sounds, some that are emitted at 500 per second, bats can detect obstacles as fine as a human hair in total darkness. These bats are often found in buildings and this is the most common bat found near people’s homes. They also live near water where they eat aquatic insects and mosquitoes. The female gives birth to one pup in June or July. They select roosting sites with high stable temperatures as high as 129 degrees F have been reported. They spend their winters hibernating in caves. Young learn to fly in three weeks. Nursery colonies often include 300 -800 individuals. This is the worlds longest lived mammal for its size sometimes exceeding 32 years. This is a small dark brown bat with inconspicuous markings, small ears and eyes.

This is the Mexican Free-Tailed Bat. Worldwide, there are more than ninety species of freetailed bats. Most occur in tropical and subtropical climates, while six occur in the United States. They are easily recognized because at least one-third of their tail protrudes beyond the membrane that connects the legs and tail, hence the name free tail. In other bats, the tail is almost entirely enclosed in the membrane. Free-tails lack distinctive markings and sure gray, brown, or russet and have large rounded ears. Most Mexican Free-tails live in about twelve caves in the United States where they form the largest colonies of any warm blooded animal. They consume enormous quantities of insects mainly moths.

More than a million live under the Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin, Texas making that the largest urban bat colony in the world. They mate in Feb. -March and give birth to one young pup. Densities sometimes are 500 per sq. ft. in caves.

Mothers identify their pups by voice and smell. The young drink 30% of their body weight in milk daily and fly in about five weeks. Most free-tails remain active year round by flying south into Mexico and Central America for the winter often in large flocks.

America’s largest bat colonies live in caves. Bracken Cave in central Texas is the summer home of twenty million Mexican Free-tailed bats.

Thousands of square feet of cave walls are covered by literally 240 tons of roosting bats – up to 500 per sq. foot. Bats gather here to rear their young in what is known as a nursery colony. A mother Free-tailed gives birth to one pup a year and quickly learns to recognize its voice and scent. She remembers her own pups exact location and voice even though it is packed among millions of others. The babies survival depends on her finding and nursing it several times a day.

Babies grow rapidly and learn to fly and navigate in 4 -5 weeks. This is an incredible achievement considering that it is accomplished in a traffic jam where several potential collisions must be avoided each second. Young bats that survive predators, such as snakes and owls who wait at cave entrances, may live up to 30 years or more.

Now we are ready for the bats of the world. This is the Pallid Bat of extreme southwest U. S. and Mexico. They feed on grasshoppers, crickets, beetles and scorpions.

Here you see it eating a scorpion. Makes me hungry, how about you.

Only two nursery colonies of Long-nosed Bats remain in the United States.

Some of the west’s most famous cacti, such as organ pipe and saguaro and agave have flowers that open up at night that are pollinated by the endangered Long-nosed Bat. Loss of these plants and cacti endanger other plants and animals that depend upon their survival.

This African Heart-nosed Bat is about to catch a beetle.

A few bats are carnivorous. This fisherman’s Bat uses its large feet and claws to snatch minnows.

This carnivorous frog eating Bat uses frog mating calls to identify and locate its prey.

Common Vampire Bats live only in parts of Latin America and drink blood from birds, cattle and other animals. They do this by making a small incision and lapping, not sucking the blood out. An anticoagulant from vampire bat saliva may soon be used to treat patients. This substance thins blood causing it to flow more freely.

Hundreds of kinds of fruit and nectar eating bats pollinate flowers and disperse seeds. This Hammer-Headed Bat is eating a rose-apple. Bats activities are vital to rain forests and to many of the worlds economically important plants. Some of these include:

Wahlberg’s Epauletted Fruit Bat seen here with full cheek pouches.

A Gambian Epauletted Fruit Bat that pollinates the famous African Baobab tree and disperses thousands of mango seeds.

This is the world’s smallest mammal, the Bumble Bee Bat of Thailand. It weighs less than a penny.

A Giant Leaf-Nosed Bat.

This is a Heart-nosed Bat, both use their special flaps and nose leaves to help them detect obstacles.

This is a Long-eared Bat

And this is a Dobson’s Horseshoe Bat.

Spotted Bats have enormous pink ears that can be rolled up during sleep.

Chapin’s Free-tailed Bat has the ability to inflate its crest.

The Mexican Long-tongued Bat has a very narrow head for pollinating flowers.

This yellow-winged Bat is from Africa.

Greater Horseshoe Bats are now extinct in many areas where they were once common.

This dwarf Epauletted Fruit Bat may eat 2. 5 times its body weight in fig tree seeds in a single night.

It and the Gambian Epauletted Fruit Bat help to disperse the seeds of the fig tree over many kilometers.

The Jamaican fruit-eating bat disperses Jamaica's most valued export crop the Allspice berry.

It also helps in propagating the almond and balsa wood harvests which continue to rely on bats for pollination.

Short-nosed fruit Bats from Thailand pollinate wild banana flowers. Although cultivated bananas do not produce seeds or need pollination, wild ancestral varieties continue to rely on bats. These plants are sometimes the only source of genetic material required to combat disease or improve the production of crops.

Lyle’s Flying Foxes are the largest bats in the world with a wingspan of 3 -6 feet.

They are found from Asia to Africa and the South Pacific.

Their numbers are declining rapidly decimated by poorly informed fruit growers, gouts and market hunters who slaughter tens of thousands for restaurant delicacies and aphrodisiac potions.

Loss of such bats could have disastrous even irreversible consequences.

The Asian Flying Fox pollinates the Durian fruit whose annual harvest is valued at 112 million dollars.

And this is the Indian Flying Fox.

You may not want bats living in your attics, but please don’t kill them. The best way to get rid of them is by plugging their entry holes after their twilight departure to feed. Another way is to drape a net a foot away but hanging over the holes. This will allow them to escape, but will not allow them to return. Evictions should not be made from early to mid-summer, when flightless young may be trapped inside without their mothers and starve.

There are many bat dependent fruits and products that play a huge role in our lives. They include plantain, bananas, mangos, guavas, breadfruit, avocados, dates, figs and many more. The balsa wood that is used for crafts and fishing lures, kapok fiber found in life jackets, rope fibers, carob for drinks and candy and agave juice for tequila liquor are also bat dependent. Over 300 plants depend on bats for pollination and those plants produce 450 economically important products.

Countless tons of bat droppings called guano continues to be mined as one of the world’s most valued fertilizers. Bat guano is so rich in nutrients that a single tablespoon full can contain hundreds of species of bacteria of great potential value. Recent tests show that some of these produce enzymes that can be used to detoxify industrial wastes. Bacteria from bat guano may soon be used to produce detergents, gasohol and antibiotics. For you ladies in the crowd, bat guano is even used to make some kinds of make-up.

Bats themselves often serve as model animals for medical research. They have contributed to the development of navigational aids for the blind, birth control, artificial insemination techniques, vaccine production, drug testing and even to a better understanding of low temperature surgical procedures.

How many bats can we lose before their numbers become too few to service the rainforests and other ecosystems. Bats are a vital resource, but their survival and health of environments depends on us. We all must share in the responsibility. When we put myths and superstitions aside, bats can be appreciated as fascinating and highly beneficial creatures.

Though much remains to be done, the success of recent conservation efforts holds promise for the future. So, you might be saying what can I do to help? One of the easiest low-cost things to do is to build and place bat boxes near your home. This will provide the bats a nice safe place to roost, while providing you with the enjoyment of having less bothersome insects and being able to view in your own backyard, these mysterious creatures of the night.

We will now adjourn out the backdoor and watch our brown bats exit from their maternal roosting colonies to forage for insects. Thank you and we hope you enjoyed the slide