McBride decided to use the children's interest in bats to form the basis of an integrated curriculum using skills in science, language arts, social studies and technology. If you want to know more about bats, Bat Conservation International Inc. has a fact-crammed Web site full of everything you ever wanted to know about bats but were too creeped out to ask. Bats are the only mammals that can really fly. 70 percent of all bat species are voracious insect eaters and help keep the bug population under control. A single brown bat can catch and eat 1,200 mosquitoes in one hour.
Bats reseed rain forests and pollinate plants and flowers.
In the Southwest, bats are the main pollinators for the giant saguaro cacti. Vampire bats adopt orphans and have been known to risk their lives to share food with less-fortunate roost mates.