BAT ing

some bat facts:

Bats are not blind. Like many animals, they are born blind, but gain eyesight from the time they are seven to nine days old.

Bats are mammals. They account for more than 25 percent of all the mammals on the earth! Bats are the only mammals that can fly.

Unlike popular belief, bats are very clean animals, that groom themselves almost all the time.

Most of the bat species give birth to one single pup each year. They are considered the slowest reproducing mammals on earth, based on their size.

Mother bats have one baby in their litter. The baby bats are called “pups.” When a pup is born, it usually has no hair and its eyes are closed. It clings to the mother bat and drinks milk from her. When the pup is about four months old, it learns to fly.

Bats are very sociable animals and live in large colonies. Depending on the type of bat, their life span is between four and thirty years.

Bats sleep upside down. They use their feet to grasp onto a twig or board, and when it is cold, they hang close together.

Bats have teeth and chew their food. Seventy percent of all bats eat insects. One bat can eat more than a thousand insects in one hour!

Little Brown bats are able to bring down their heart rate to 20 beats per minute and can even stop breathing for 48 minutes at a time, while in hibernation.