Bats: True Utility Animals
For most of us, the sight of a bat swooping through the sky causes us to duck and run. But if you knew that the variety known as the Little Brown Bat weighs no more than two nickels, would you think twice about screeching?
Once you hear these facts about the only mammal that can fly, you just might want to dress up your little ones as a friendly bat this Halloween.
Batdroppings – called guano – are used in farming. Its high nitrogen content makes good fertilizer.
Bats can fly incredible distances – some flying one-thousand miles south from Canada each fall to migrate.
Despite the belief that vampire bats suck on human blood, the Common Vampire Bats prefer a diet of cow and horse blood.
However, most bats enjoy eating moths, mosquitoes and otherwinged insects.
In just one hour they consume as many as one thousand of
those pesky insects that we try so hard to get rid of with bug spray!
Pet bat anyone?
For further reference: National Geographic Kids Almanac 2010