Cute Bats
6 10 2009Maybe “cute” is not the first word that come’s into your mind when you think about bats, but you have to admit, that if it wasn’t for the horror vampires movies, bats were just another nocturne creature.
There are about 1,100 bat species worldwide, which represent about 20% of all classified mammal species. About 70% of bats are insectivores. Most of the rest are fruit eaters. Very few species feed from animals. Bats are present throughout most of the world and perform vital ecological roles such as pollinating flowers and dispersing fruit seeds. Many tropical plants depend entirely on bats for the distribution of their seeds.
Bats get such bad press. Just like sharks when ‘Jaws’ was released, they have been villainised by Hollywood. Bats are amazing, I had some living in trees in my garden, it was fascinating to watch them hunt on summer nights.
What? No flying foxes? Shame! The ones shown are ridiculously cute, though.
Aww, I [heart] bats!
Very impressive. How did you find so many species? How did you catch them? I noticed in some of the pics bare fingers…isn’t there a high incidence of rabies in bats? I like the fact that the photos were taken from basically from the same angle. Thank you.
Giant Fruit Bats are the cutest if you ask me. These are all nice though; most bats really aren’t mean or nasty.