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Bats

Bats are mammals. The arms of all bats are developed as wings, making them the only mammals able to fly. The word Chiroptera comes from the Greek words cheir "hand" and pteron "wing," as the structure of the open wing is very similar to a human hand between the fingers. 

     Bats have very interesting skeletons because it almost looks like they have fingers and they have long feet to hang tight onto a tree.

     Bats have their own natural habitat too, instead of going on the internet or listening to an iPod or watching TV they just hang there and sometimes communicate with each other and eventually go to get food.

     About 70% of bats eat bugs. Most of the rest eat fruit, with a few species being meat eaters. Bats live in most of the world. Bats perform an important part in the world by pollinating flowers, and an important role in seed planting. Many plants need bats.

     Most micro bats are awake at night. Many bats migrate.  Still others go to thier caves for winter and hibernate for six months. Bats rarely fly in rain because the rain messes up the bats and they are unable to locate their food. The structure of bats evolves, with some bats leading a life on its own and others living in caves in groups with more than a million bats. Their social skills are seen among several species of bats. Studies also show that bats make sounds to communicate with others. Scientists in the field have listened to bats and have been able to identify some sounds with some behavior bats will make right after the sounds are made.

    They can locate their pray by their sound bouncing off of things. The others mostly feed on fruits and fruits' juices. Only three species drink blood to survive.  At least two species of bats are known to eat other bats: the Spectral Bat, also called the American False Vampire bat, and the Ghost Bat of Australia. The Greater Noctule bat, is believed to catch and eat small birds in the air. It has been noted recently that, unexpectedly, bats seem to suffer a higher death rate than birds in the neighborhood of wind turbines.

source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bats

     Mother bats usually have only one offspring per year. A baby bat is referred to as a pup. Pups are usually left in the roost when they are nursing. However, a newborn bat can cling to the fur of the mother and be transported, although they soon grow too large for this. It would be difficult for an adult bat to carry more than one young, but normally only one young is born. Bats often form nursery roosts, with many females giving birth in the same area, be it cave, a tree hole, or a cavity in a building. Mother bats are able to find their young in colonies of millions of pups.

     The ability to fly is genetic, but at birth the wings are too small to fly.    Young micro bats become independent at the age of 6 to 8 weeks, At the age of two years, bats are adults. A single bat can live over 20 years, but the bat population growth is limited by the slow birth rate.

     By making high-pitched sounds and listening to the echoes, also known as sonar, micro bats locate prey and other nearby objects. This is the process of echolocation, ability they share dolphins and whales. Senses: tiger moths produce ultrasonic signals to warn the bats that the moths are poisonous (this was once thought to be a form of "radar jamming"), but this theory has been disproved.

     Bats have a hearing organ called tympanum which responds to an incoming bat signal causing the bat's flight muscles to twitch erratically, sending the moth into random evasive maneuvers.

Although the eyes of most micro bat species are small and poorly developed, leading to poor,

it is incorrect to think that they are nearly blind. Vision is used as an aid in navigation especially at long distances. It has even been discovered that some species are able to detect ultraviolet light. Their senses of smell and hearing are excellent.

     They have very sharp teeth to break through the shells of most insects or the skin of most fruits.

While other mammals have one-way valves only in their veins to prevent the blood from flowing backwards, bats also have the same thing in their arteries like us humans.

     The finger bones of bats are much more flexible than those of other mammals. One reason is that the cartilage in their fingers lacks calcium and other minerals.

     The cross-section of the finger bone is also flattened instead of circular as is the bone in a human finger, making it even more flexible. The skin on their wing membranes is a lot more elastic and can stretch much more than is usually seen among mammals.

               Because their wings are much thinner than those of birds, bats can maneuver more quickly and more precisely than birds. The surfaces of their wings are also equipped with touch-sensitive receptors on small bumps called Merkel cells.

               These sensitive areas are different in bats as each bump has a tiny hair in the center, making it even more sensitive, and allowing the bat to detect and collect information about the air flowing over its wings. An additional kind of receptor cell is found in the wing membrane of species that use their wings to catch prey. This receptor cell is sensitive to the stretching of the membrane. The cells are concentrated in areas of the membrane where insects hit the wings when the bats capture them.

     One species of bat has the longest tongue of any mammal relative to its body size. This is beneficial to them in terms of pollination and feeding.  Their long narrow tongues can reach deep into the long cup shape of some flowers. When their tongue retracts, it coils up inside their rib cage. The lungs of bats are typical mammalian lungs, and unlike the lungs of birds; this has been said to make them more sensitive to be injured when subjected to the sudden changes in air pressure generated in the immediate of wind turbines.