BATS
Bats are absolutely incredible animals.They are creatures of mammals that possess the extraordinary ability of powered flight.Bats are the smallest & fastest little creatures,reaching the speed of over 100 miles per hour.Despite their resemblance to rodents,bats are more closely related to humans than they are to mice.
Types of bats
There are 2 main types of bats namely,Microbats & Megabats . Most bats are Microbats which eat insects like moths,that come out at night.Vampire bats are only species of microbats that feed on blood rather than insects. But not to fear,they prefer blood of horses & cattles ,not humans.These bats don’t actually suck blood. Instead, they use their sharp teeth to small incision in skin of animals and then they consume blood as it runs from the wound.
Interesting fact is, Microbats rely on echolocate,also know as biosonar(biological sonars) by making a high pitched sound that travels until it hits an object & bounces back to them,which helps them to know about the object ‘s size & how far away is it. This ability is so sensitive that it can detect objects as thin as single strand of human hair.
In contrast ,these Megabats have larger eyes & stronger sense of smell than microbats but have smaller ears as they don’t echolocate.
MEGABATS
MICROBATS
DO YOU KNOW THESE FACTS ??…. Ever thought about these🤔
1.Why do bats hang upside down?
Hanging upside down for even few seconds will leave anyone feel dizzy and little light headed,then how do these bats do it??
Humans and bats circulatory system are fundamentally different,because our blood pumps in the direction of our brain,the force of gravity transfers even more blood to head when we hang upside down. Bats circulatory system pumps in opposite way,away from its head.They have a little pathways in their body through which blood passes,called arteries.These arteries have special valves in them that only let blood through one way.All mammals have valves in their veins that prevent blood from flowing backward, bats possess these valves in their arteries as well. All these adaptation ensures blood to distribute evenly throughout the body. Bats on other hand are tiny small compared to humans&they don’t weigh enough for gravity to affect their blood flow.
Bats have a good reason to hang upside down. As their wings aren’t as strong as birds wings, so they aren’t able to build up enough speed while taking off from ground or sitting position, Instead they can enter into fly with no effort if they start from hanging upside down. They take less effort to hang upside down, as they possess a specialized tendons in feet which enable them to hang in perfectly relaxed posture. But if they are sitting right side up they’d to contract muscle&thus expend energy to let go & begin flying
2.Bats are inspiring medical marvels
About 80 medicines come from plants that rely on bats for their survival.while bats are not blind ,studying how bats use echolocation has helped scientists develop navigational aids for blind and the peptides from bats are unusually selective in their mode of action,making them more therapeutically useful&this could potentially help doctor in the treatment of range of disorders featuring heightened pressure in small blood vessels or may be able to improve blood flow to damaged or transplanted tissue such as skin grafts.
3.Bats and the pollination&pest control
Over 300 species of fruit depend on bats for pollination.They help in spreading seeds for nuts,figs&cacao,without bats we could not have been imagined plants like agave or suguaro cactus.
Another benefit thing is there’s no need to use harmful pesticides when you have colony of bats nearby.Some individuals of bats can eat more than 600 flying insects per hour.Yes,we can perfectly choose bats for organic pest control, without them we humans might have faced huge problems towards our insect overlords.
4.Bats and their immune response
Bats,the only mammals which has ability to fly ,which take enormous output of energy as a byproduct of all metabiotic activity.This high production of energy,helps bats to tolerate against various kinds of viruses&other deadly diseases and this ability of production of high energy also can lead to accumulation of free radicals,a reactive molecule that can damage tissues.To prevent this reactive waste from damaging bats have sophisticated defence mechanisms,which even helps them to defend themselves from deadly viruses&diseases.
Do you know why bats carry so many diseases??
To have a clear idea about this,let’s have a view on this below video
https://ed.ted.com/best_of_web/CnfJm2rX#review
World of Science 