Gallery: Tricks and Treats: 12 Amazing Things About Bats
01even-bats-have-friends
Bats are among the world's most successful mammals. Found on six continents, they do at night what birds do in daytime. But other than a bit of Halloween lip service, they go largely unnoticed, and are appreciated mostly for being scary and carrying disease. We at Wired, however, are big fans of bats, and on the following pages we take a closer look at these amazing creatures. __Above:__ Even Bats Have Friends ---------------------- Because bats live in colonies and look alike to human eyes, it's odd to imagine them having friends. Yet researchers say they're smart, highly social, and [hang out with the same group year after year](http://phys.org/news/2011-02-high-social-intelligence.html). Some even mate for life. *Image: Little brown bats in Laurel Caverns, Pennsylvania. ([Brandon Keim](https://secure.flickr.com/photos/31805863@N00/5106405096/)/Wired)*
02on-our-radar
On Our Radar ------------ Bat echolocation works much like radar. As it happens, [Mexican free-tailed bats](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_free-tailed_bat) live in colonies so large that when they emerge at night, they show up on human radars (below). [](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2012/10/bat_radar1.jpg) *Images: 1) Mexican free-tailed bats exiting Bracken Cave in Texas. ([USFWS](https://secure.flickr.com/photos/usfwshq/8006832787/)/Flickr) 2) Mexican free-tailed bats as detected by Doppler radar. ([Emariana Taylor](http://gato-docs.its.txstate.edu/lovell-center/Posters/Taylor-Poster.pdf))*
03baby-bats-in-blankets
Baby Bats in Blankets --------------------- One of the more adorable (and alliterative) [memes to sweep the intertubes](http://www.buzzfeed.com/gavon/baby-bats-in-blankets), these fuzzy little fellows were rescued after a flood in eastern Australia. *Image: Luke Marsden/Newspix/Rex*
04love-songs
Love Songs ---------- Bats use such a [rich repertoire of vocalizations](http://www.batcon.org/index.php/media-and-info/bats-archives.html?task=viewArticle&magArticleID=961) that some researchers think they may have a rudimentary language. If so, they speak the language of love. In the video above, a Mexican free-tailed bat sings a courtship song. *Video: [George Pollak](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vy1HkOiAaBo)/YouTube*
05an-evolutionary-success-hidden-in-the-dark
An Evolutionary Success, Hidden in the Dark ------------------------------------------- Because bats are nocturnal, most people only infrequently see them -- a glimpse here, a flicker there. The night obscures just how widespread they are. Their taxonomic order, Chiroptera, contains more species than any mammal order except rodents. The fossil above is *Onychonycteris finneyi*, the oldest known bat. It [lived 52 million years ago](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7243502.stm) in what is now the western United States. The fossil is well-preserved enough for scientists to see that *O. finneyi* couldn't echolocate, but its body plan could otherwise pass for modern. Eating insects on the wing at night is, quite simply, an evolutionary recipe that works. *Image: Aarvid Aase/NPS*
06more-baby-bats-in-blankets
More Baby Bats in Blankets -------------------------- Or at least hanging on blankets, rather than being wrapped in them. *Image: An Eastern red bat nursing its offspring. ([Josh Henderson](https://secure.flickr.com/photos/bugginout/4668237314/ )/Flickr*
07big-money-bats
Big Money Bats -------------- Even if you don't love bats, you can love what they do: eat insects that eat crops. Add up the money they save in pesticides, and it amounts to some [$3 billion per year in the United States](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/04/bat-value/), and possibly much more. [](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2012/10/batvalues.jpg) *Images: 1) [Gilles San Martin](https://secure.flickr.com/photos/sanmartin/4582076303/)/Flickr* 2) Estimated county-by-county annual value of insectivorous bats in agriculture. Multiply values by $1,000, e.g., 2100 to 3400 equals $2.1 million to $3.4 million (Boyles et al./Science).
08bat-love
Bat Love -------- Because this is a family publication, we'll let the authors of "[Fellatio by Fruit Bats Prolongs Copulation Time](http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0007595 )," a study published in 2009 in *Public Library of Science One*, explain their findings in scientific terms: [](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2012/10/fruit_bat_fellatio.png) > The short-nosed fruit bat *Cynopterus sphinx* exhibits resource defence polygyny and one sexually active male often roosts with groups of females in tents made from leaves. Female bats often lick their mate’s penis during dorsoventral copulation. The female lowers her head to lick the shaft or the base of the male’s penis but does not lick the glans penis which has already penetrated the vagina. Males never withdrew their penis when it was licked by the mating partner. A positive relationship exists between the length of time that the female licked the male’s penis during copulation and the duration of copulation. Furthermore, mating pairs spent significantly more time in copulation if the female licked her mate’s penis than if fellatio was absent. Males also show postcopulatory genital grooming after intromission. As scientists are not supposed to leap to conclusions, the researchers wrote that "at present, we do not know why genital licking occurs.” *Images: 1) Fruit bats. ([Rob](https://secure.flickr.com/photos/28960125@N06/7371973998/)/Flickr 2) Graph depicting the relationship between the duration of fellatio and copulation and fruit bats. (Tan et al./PLoS One)*
09dont-blame-the-bats
Don't Blame the Bats -------------------- Though it's true that bats often carry diseases that can infect humans, outbreaks aren't always their fault. Take the case of Hendra virus, which made a lethal jump between fruit bats (above) and humans in Australia. Turns out [human activity made the outbreak more likely](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/05/hendra-virus-causes/). Human development fragmented the bats' migratory habitats, and imported urban fruit trees offered year-round sources of food that didn't exist before. Many bats stopped migrating and settled year-round in urban areas, a dynamic that changed how disease levels fluctuated in their own populations, ultimately helping the virus spill over into ours. On a related note, attempts at culling rabies-carrying vampire bat populations in Peru [appear to have backfired](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/06/vampire-bat-rabies/). By destabilizing the colonies, culls actually made them more vulnerable to the disease. *Image: [James Niland](https://secure.flickr.com/photos/bareego/7090487195/)/Flickr*
10adapted-to-vampires
Adapted to Vampires ------------------- Rabies, a disease sometimes carried by vampire bats, is [thought to be almost universally fatal](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/07/ff_rabies/). In Peru, however, some people who live where vampire bat attacks are frequent [appear to resist the disease](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/08/rabies-survivor-mystery-deepens/). It's not supposed to be possible, but over generations they appear to have adapted. *Image: [Daniel Streicker](http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2012/dpk0801-rabies-photos.html)*
11a-leafy-green-cave
A Leafy Green Cave ------------------ Though bats are stereotyped as living in caves, many live among vegetation for much of the year. Hardwicke's woolly bats do both: [they roost inside pitcher plants](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/01/bat-guano-plants/). Over evolutionary time car key-sized bats and their plants have adapted to each other, with the plants providing cover and protection in exchange for nutrient-rich guano. *Image: [Holger Bohn](http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/01/carnivorous-plant-feasts-on-bat-.html)*
12white-nose-syndrome
White Nose Syndrome ------------------- North American bats are sadly threatened by [the most virulent disease outbreak ever seen in animals](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/white-nose-syndrome/). White Nose Syndrome was first detected in a New York cave in 2006; since then it's killed more than 6 million bats, threatening some species with extinction and leaving much of the eastern United States nearly bat-free. To help fight the disease, visit [Bat Conservation International](http://www.batcon.org/index.php/what-we-do/white-nose-syndrome/subcategory/468.html) or the [National Speleological Society](http://www.caves.org/WNS/Rapid_Response.shtml). *Image: Researchers inspect an Indiana bat for signs of White Nose Syndrome in Carter Caves state park, Kentucky. ([Brandon Keim](https://secure.flickr.com/photos/31805863@N00/sets/72157625204800454/with/5106398306/)/Wired)*
