While walking to your car one warm summer evening you notice a tiny creature fluttering noiselessly in the night sky. Through the ages bats have acquired an undeservedly bad reputation, when in fact these fascinating creatures are an important part of our ecosystem. Although we ve all heard the old saying blind as a bat bats are actually not blind at all, they swoop and dive using a sophisticated combination of sight and echolocation for guidance. Within the four families of bats living in the United States there are forty-five different species each one performing a vital function within its own environment.
Bats are one of the most important natural enemies of night-flying insects in the world.
One North American little brown bat can devour as many as 1,200 mosquito sized insects in only an hour and the Mexican free-tailed bats of Bracken Cave, Texas are known to consume over a million tons of insects every night. However, insects are not always the chosen diet of bats. Some species of bats prefer to dine on centipedes, scorpions, or small fish, and some choose fruit or the nectar of tropical trees and flowers. In Arizona, desert dwelling bats pollinate several species of giant cacti including the saguaro as they feed on the cactus nectar. Although bats fly, they are not birds at all - but mammals.