The secret life of bats

Image: Phil Richardson

Introduction

Of the world's 4,800 or so species of mammals, nearly 1,000 - almost 1 in 5 - are bats. They vary in size from minuscule, almost butterfly-sized creatures, to huge animals with wingspans of nearly two metres. Thanks to their mastery of powered flight, bats are distributed across much of the world. They feed mainly on insects and fruits, but some eat nectar, frogs, fish, other small mammals or even blood.

Everyone reacts to bats, sometimes with horror but more often with fascination. Although they are linked in many people's minds with scary films, the truth about these amazing creatures' lives is very different. In this seminar, Phil Richardson, chairman of the Bat Conservation Trust in the UK, goes behind the scenes and reveals that bats have a complex lifestyle, a rich social life and senses that are almost beyond our comprehension.

Bats, Phil Richardson, Paperback (2002)

Amazing, fascinating and bizarre are words that barely start to describe the bats of the world. Some are big, some are tiny, many eat insects and fruit, yet there are others with more unusual tastes in food such as the fisherman bat which uses its claws to catch fish or the unjustly demonised blood-eating vampire bats. Bats will not fly into your hair and they are not blind, though most find their food and avoid obstacles in the darkness of night not by vision but by using their remarkable and highly developed sense of echolocation. Their role in pollination is crucial to the environment in which they live. Bats are full of surprises.

With such a large array of species, bat expert Phil Richardson takes you on a guided tour of the nocturnal world of bats: where they live, how they feed, and how they survive in almost every habitat on the planet. He uses his experience of bat watching around the world to bring these misunderstood creatures to life, describing their complex life cycles, explaining how you can watch and study bats and help conserve these often threatened mammals. Wherever you live, there are likely to be bats near you, so discover more with this highly readable and beautifully illustrated book.

Topics

• Bat evolution, diversity and classification
• Bat structure
• Bat senses
• Roosting and hibernating
• Breeding and feeding
• Bat conservation

About the author

Phil Richardson is a science teacher by day and spends his evenings and holidays working with bats. He has helped to popularise bats in the UK through TV and radio presentations, and by setting up a number of local bat volunteer groups and the UK's national Bat Conservation Trust. He is the author of two popular books on this fascinating group of animals.