The world's smallest bat, the bumblebee bat, weighs less than a penny. One of the world's largest bats, Lyle's flying fox, as a wingspan of nearly six feet. North America's common little brown bat has the world's longest lifespan for a mammal of its size, sometimes living longer than thirty-two years. The African heart-nosed bat can hear the footsteps of a beetle walking on sand from a distance of more than six feet. Bats may resemble rodents, but scientists believe they are more closely related to primates.
Bats are beneficial Bats are the most important natural enemies of night-flying insects.
A single little brown bat can catch more than 1,000 mosquitoes in just one hour, while a colony of 150 big brown bats can protect local farmers from as many as 18 million rootworms each summer. Desert ecosystems rely on nectar-feeding bats as primary pollinators of giant cacti, including the famous organ pipe and saguaro of Arizona. Rain forests need bats to pollinate flowers and disperse the seeds. Bats are at risk Bats are exceptionally vulnerable to extinction because their reproductive rate is the slowest of the world's smaller mammals, with only one young produced annually. More than 50 percent of American bat species are in severe decline or are already listed as endangered.