The smallest bat is called a Bumblebee bat and can be found in Thailand. The Pallid bat, found in Western North America is immune to the stings of scorpions and centipedes. African heart nosed bats can hear the footsteps of a beetle walking on sand from a distance of over 6 feet. Mother bats are able to find their own young in huge colonies of millions of other babies. A single little brown bat can eat 1,200 mosquitoe-sized insects in just one hour.
Tropical bats are essential to the future of the rainforests.
They pollinate flowers and dispurse seeds for countless trees and shrubs. Less than one-half of one percent of bats contract rabies. Bats will only bite in self-defense and pose little threat to people who do not handle them. More than half of the American bat species are in severe decline or already listed as endangered. Though soundless to our ears, bats are actually filling our night skies with noise.