With gargoyle faces, night-time habits and a reputation rooted in fear and folklore, bats linger in our collective conscious as beastly creatures of darkness. But bats, of course, aren't mice at all. And different bat species are as varied from each other as a beaver is from a pine squirrel. Bat fossils date back 60 million years, to the time of dinosaurs, and the bats of today don't look a great deal different from their ancient ancestors.
Bats are a successful animal group, in fact one fourth of mammal species worldwide are bats.
These flying mammals were once extremely abundant, perhaps filling the sky as passenger pigeons did in the last century. But loss of habitat, persecution by humans, pesticide poisoning and other impacts from human activity have affected bat numbers tremendously. Bats have not been studied as closely as many mammals and much of their biology remains a mystery, perpetuating a fear of bats rooted in a lack of under-standing. Their most notable skill is the ability to fly. A bat's wing is formed from an elongated forearm and four elongated fingers with a translucent membrane of skin stretched between them.