Sinister superstitions have given bats a bad rap, but these mammals actually are a boon to gardens. The winged wonders play a pivotal role in the ecosystem as pollinators, seed dispersers and pest predators.
A foraging bat can eat 50 to 100 percent of its weight in insects nightly, with adults consuming as many as 1,200 mosquitoes per hour. Plus, bats’ waste, called guano, makes a valuable fertilizer.
Colorado is home to 18 bat species. Bats can live as long as 32 years in the wild, but more and more fall victim to pesticides that deplete bats’ natural food source. Furthermore, when insectivore bats consume bugs tainted with pesticides, the bats get poisoned, too.
Habitat encroachment also threatens bats. To protect themselves from predators on the ground, bats sleep hanging upside down. When bats hang, their feet automatically close and lock without further effort, allowing them to sleep as long as 20 hours per day. The problem is, there are fewer and fewer places for bats to hang out.
Colorado bats roost in caves, hollow trees, beneath bridges and in mine tunnels. But when inactive Colorado mines were closed to prevent danger to people and to avoid liability issues, thousands of bats were entombed alive and, ultimately, starved to death.
In 1991, several government agencies developed a program to provide bat habitat in inactive mines. Instead of blasting the mines to back-fill tunnels or sealing openings with concrete, certain mines determined as bat colony habitat were fitted with steel “bat gates” — grids that keep people out, but allow bats to come and go.
On the fly, bats rely on echolocation. Bats send out high- pitched shrieks and then listen for echoes that help them navigate swiftly and accurately at night. The squeaks, inaudible to human ears, are said to be as loud to a bat as a pneumatic drill is to a human ear. Homing in on prey, bats can emit as many as 200 shrieks per second to pinpoint a bug. Some large- eared bats have hearing so keen that they can detect the sound of insect wings flapping.
More people are less batty about bats. Myths are falling away and the true nature of bats is coming to the light of day. Bats are not insects or birds. They are mammals, but not flying rodents. As the only mammals with true, sustained flight, they’re in a class unto themselves. Bat wings are actually large hands, with extended fingers serving as the framework for leathery wing skin.
As more people come to understand the benevolent nature of bats, fewer folks want information on eradicating bats and more want to welcome bats by putting up bat boxes.
Colleen Smith, a Denver-based writer, blogs at .
Habitats-for-bats tips
Want to build your own bat house or figure out where to place one you’ve bought? Visit these websites:
•
•
•
