How mice scream. Bat is a useful vampire

Signs and beliefs associated with bats

Signs and beliefs associated with bats.

I am Alone nocturnal, bat-winged from an ancient family.

An unknown mouse hanging upside down on a tree.

I may be a bird of some rare breed

From the realm of ultra, from the city of echo echo hero?

No, I'm not a vampire, that's in the past... larva for dinner

(I'm on a diet), butterflies lean pate,

Fruit pulp - a supply of vitamins, colds ...

Kh..., the eternal draft in these European caves!... Over the years

Understanding has come, I am not alive alone as a butterfly,

I send a request to other worlds - ultrasound ...

But the echo is silent, the Great Mouse does not listen.

Where to attach the membranes of winged hands ???

***

If a the bats come out of their holes just after sunset and frolic in the sky, this portends clear and warm weather.

An old Scottish belief says: if a bat takes off and falls to the ground again, it means that the witching hour has come, when the witches have power over everyone human beings, deprived of special protection. Of all the inhabitants of Britain, only the Scots saw any connection between bats and people.

Here is another similar belief.

Modern residents of Tendo (Gold Coast) believe that packs bats, leaving the island every evening and rushing to the mouth of the river, these are the souls of the dead, who reside on the sacred island and every evening must visit the dwelling of the good fetish Tano, who lives in the river of the same name. And the Wotjobaluk tribe in southeastern Australia believes that the life of a bat is linked to human life, and if you kill a bat, then human life will be reduced.

A similar superstition in Scotland and the north of England was associated with hares. It was believed that witches could turn into hares, and if the hare was wounded or killed, then the witch would also be found killed or wounded.

Thus, many witches and sorcerers were caught in Britain. In Russia, "superstitious people wore [bats] ... dried in their bosoms, for the sake of health or happiness. Or boiled with boiling water and such water was given to heal the sick, lying in a in a fever, children. "In Eastern Siberia, after killing a bat, "they hang it on a thread from the ceiling and dry it for a long time; after that they grind it into a powder that is mixed with horse feed. It prevents spoilage." Bats were called bats. It is believed that "bats are played - to the bucket.

A bat flies into the house - to trouble.

Encounters with a bat are the most terrible signs - there is nothing worse than an encounter with these mice.

If the bat screams or squeaks during the flight, expect failure.

If a bat attacked a person, death is on the way.

To see a bat that flaps its wings is to invite a terrible disease on yourself.

On the Isle of Man and in areas along the border with Wales, it was rumored that witches turned into bats and entered houses in this form. E. M. Laser tells the story of a man from Whibley Marsh who saw "something like a bat" fly into his room. He hit her with a handkerchief, but when he began to look for the corpse, he found nothing. Subsequently, he said that by this sign he realized that it was a witch from among those who then lived in the district, because a real bat would have died from such a blow for sure. A Scottish belief is recorded that when a bat soars up in flight and then drops sharply to the ground, this means that the hour of the witches has come - the time when they have power over people who do not have special protection against them.

Despite this association with witches, the Manx people consider it a very good omen if a bat falls on a person. Many women outside the island will doubt this, because of the general belief that if a bat flies or falls on a woman's head, it will certainly get tangled in the hair and will not get out until it is cut off. But this seems to be nothing more than superstition, not based on facts. The Countryman (Spring 1960) reports an experiment carried out in 1959 by the Earl of Cranbrook, with the kind help of three young women, who allowed him to throw a bat in his hair. Used four bats various kinds, and in all cases this creature managed to get out without difficulty, without making any disorder in the hair.

In Oxfordshire, it is considered a harbinger of death when a bat flies around the house three times. If bats appear in the early evening and fly around, as if playing, this is good weather.

Children, seeing a bat, often try to avert trouble by singing or saying:

Mouse, mouse, fly away

Fly away from here

Fly again tomorrow

Mouse, mouse fly away

Bat, fly to the sky

I will give you bread

I'll give you a sip of beer

Piece of wedding cake.

A bat falls on you - a sign of good luck.

Bringing a bat into the house is a sign of misfortune, a sign of death in the family.

A bat appears at a wedding - a bad sign.

The bat circles the house three times - a sign of death.

A bat flying out to “play” in the early evening is a sign of good weather.

The bat hit the building - a sign of rain.

To see a bat during the day is unfortunately.

Kill a bat - your life will be shorter.

Keeping a bat bone in your clothes brings good luck.

Keeping the right eye of a bat in your jacket pocket grants invisibility.

Carrying a powdered bat heart with you will prevent a person from bleeding to death or stop a bullet.

Wash your face with bat blood - gives you the ability to see in the dark.

Adding a few drops of bat blood to someone's drink makes the drinker more passionate.

SOURCES TO TAKE:

POEMS TAKE HERE:

HERE THEY ARE IN ALL THE GREAT!

Who flies with his arms dangling, sleeps upside down and sees with his ears? Any student will answer this riddle question: a bat. It is impossible to pick up another creature with the same amazing characteristics.

Silent rapid flight, lightning-fast turns and turns in the air, a phenomenal ability to avoid obstacles, a very repulsive muzzle with leathery growths, a nocturnal lifestyle all this somehow does not fit into the cute image of a harmless little animal.

It's amazing how persistent people's ancient antipathies are towards bats, which, in principle, are nothing bad man did not, but on the contrary brought and bring benefits.

Almost the first signs of “chiropterophobia” in world literature (“chiroptera” is the Greek name for the order of bats) can be found in Aesop. One of the fables of the great Greek tells of a bloody war between animals and birds. Due to their dual nature, bats inhabitants of both heaven and earth took one side or the other depending on how they turned fighting. When peace triumphed in the animal kingdom, the former enemies unanimously condemned the two-winged bats (one would like to say: “two-winged ones”) and sentenced them to the darkness of the night, forbidding them to appear in nature in daylight.

The African tribes living in Cameroon still have the idea of evil spirits yu-yu, hiding in caves and flying out of there for black deeds at night. Here is what the famous English zoologist Gerald Durrell wrote in his book The Overloaded Ark:

“The sounds coming from the darkness seemed ominous and scary. It was very cold in the cave, and we were all shivering... I ordered the hunters to stay where they were and went to the place where the floor of the cave began to sink... Going to the edge, I illuminated a large depression with a lantern, from which strange sounds came. At first, it seemed to me that the floor of the lower cavern broke loose and began to move towards me, accompanied by gusts of wind and a supernatural howl. I had a terrible thought that the evil perfume yu-yu do exist and I will now become a victim of their fury. But then I realized that all this black mass is made up of hundreds of little bats. They kept together like a swarm of bees; hundreds of these creatures, like a shaggy moving rug, densely covered the rocky ceiling of the lower cave.

Perhaps the most sinister place bats occupy in Mexican folklore. In the mythology of the descendants of the Mayan Indians living in the south of Mexico, the demon Hical plays a special role - the evil genius of cunning and deceit. It infects people with an unstable psyche or bad temper and bends them to his wicked will. Anthropologists have established that the demon Hikal is a direct descendant of the bloodthirsty Mayan god, who demanded human sacrifice and was depicted as a small black creature with winged paws. The bat analogy is the most direct.

Why do we dislike bats so much? The simplest explanation lies in the habits and structure of bats. Too alien to us diurnal non-flying mammals they lead a way of life. Their transformed limbs with translucent membranes look too unnatural.

"Outrageous Discovery"

Of course, scientists could not help but pay attention to the strange behavior of bats, and the Italian naturalist of the 18th century, Lazzaro Spallanzani, was the first to take them seriously. In 1793, he, already a well-known scientist, conducted experiments on animals and unexpectedly discovered that, blinded, they fly as freely as sighted ones. After a series of experiments, the naturalist concluded that in blind bats, the organs of vision "are replaced by some other organ or sense, which is not inherent in people and about which we can never know anything." Sometimes great scientists make mistakes. The very next year, the Genevan surgeon Louis Zhurin revealed the secret of bats. As it turned out, bats become completely helpless if they ... tightly clog their ears.

Spallanzani pretended not to believe Zhurin, but secretly repeated his experiments year after year and became convinced that his Genevan colleague was right - bats actually “see” with their ears. Only after the death of Spallanzani in 1799 did publications about his experiments come out, but the scientific world took the news with hostility. See with ears? Incredible! “Maybe in that case, bats hear with their eyes?” a certain witty naturalist asked sarcastically in the press.

In 1938, two Americans, students of Harvard University, Donald Griffin and Robert Galambos, took up strange "ear-seers". Back in 1920, one of the acousticians suggested that bats emit high-frequency sounds and orient themselves in space by signals reflected from obstacles. By the end of the 1930s, a receiver for recording ultrasounds had already been invented. For two years, young scientists have been experimenting, capturing the signals emitted by bats, and proved: yes, echo helps bats fly. Moreover, many species of bats are guided in flight only by reflected sounds, not relying on sight at all. Soon a new term was born - echolocation.

Only two decades ago, experts began to realize that echolocation is not as simple as it seemed at first glance. Where previously there was an exhaustive acoustic scheme transmitting and receiving ultrasounds, amazing depths opened up, the most interesting was just beginning there. And to this day, the questions that bats “ask” are much more than answers.

Gourmets and Vampires

"... The little bat... squeaked angrily and, like all bats, looked very much like a shabby umbrella," J. Durrell wrote. A very good comparison. Only ... there are a lot of these “shabby umbrellas” in the world, and they are very different. They live everywhere, except in Antarctica they are not. They spread across the planet without difficulty, covering enormous distances. In Hawaii, for example, bats are clearly of American origin, and between North America and the Hawaiian Islands there are more than three and a half thousand kilometers.

On many islands Pacific Ocean the animal world is very scarce. And bats are everywhere. They, and even rats, sometimes all the island representatives of the class of mammals. Bats are the only native mammals in New Zealand. Rats, however, are also present there, but they are believed to have been brought by people. And the “shabby umbrellas” are their own, primordial ones.

It has been calculated: every tenth of the class of mammals on Earth is a representative of the order of bats. There are tens of billions of bats and fruit bats on our planet. Of the mammals, they are second in number only to rodents. In this colossal army there are 2 suborders, 19 families, 174 genera and about a thousand species and subspecies. Sometimes, in just one cave, myriads of bats settle down for the night. For example, New Cave in Texas holds up to 15 million (!) Mexican folded lips. When they fly out in search of food at dusk, it may seem to an outside observer that a major fire has started underground, as if clouds of black smoke are pouring out of a hole.

In fairness, we say that not all bats are necessarily nocturnal and not all excellent "hearers". For example, flying foxes inhabitants of the tropics are frugivorous animals, and they absolutely do not need to hunt for insects “by sound”. These large bats - in one species the wingspan reaches one and a half meters - are completely devoid of the ability to echolocation, but their visual acuity is enviable: flying foxes are ten times sharper than humans.

The taste preferences of bats are extremely diverse. There are species that feed exclusively on nectar and pollen from flowers. Their muzzle is elongated, conical, the tongue is prohibitively long to make it easier to get to the delicacy. Like most bats, they do a good deed - they pollinate plants. Moreover, plants “know” about this: their flowers are the most ordinary-looking green, brown (bats do not have color vision), but the smell is sharp, sour, very attractive to some bats. They do not need another diet: nectar is rich in sugars, and pollen provides all vital substances - proteins, fats, vitamins, mineral salts.

Fruit bats also live in friendship with plants. The sticky remnants of the eaten dinner fruit pits, seeds stick to the flyers and are carried over long distances. Fruit trees, “designed” for bats, are optimally created by nature: fruits are discreet, but with a strong smell, there are no sharp thorns and hard leaves on the branches soft-bodied bats can fly fearlessly. Other animals as well as humans most often do not eat these fruits: hard, sour, even bitter, but bats eat them with pleasure.

Omnivorous bats for example, large vampires are true predators. True, they do not suck blood, despite the name. Here bats have some confusion: big vampires are not vampires at all, it is a sin to call them ghouls, but bloodsucking vampires they really only feed on blood. In the bat kingdom, big vampires, if not giants, then certainly tall ones for sure: a wingspan of up to 70 centimeters. These robbers attack frogs, rodents, birds, and even differ in cannibal manners - they eat their own relatives.

What are the tastes of the great angler (Noctilio leporinus) is clear from the name. This bat, native to Central and South America, preys exclusively on small fish. She soars at night over rivers and bays and carefully locates the surface of the water. As soon as a fin appears or the fish splashes its tail, the flying fisherman immediately dives, catches the prey with the claws of the hind legs and, lifting it into the air, puts it in the “bag” formed by the membrane between the legs. Then, in a more relaxed atmosphere, he takes to the meal: he eats part of the fish, and puts part in the cheek pouches for future use ...

The most repulsive way of feeding with bloodsucking vampires. They also live in South and Central America, suck blood from large ungulates and do not want to know other food. It is no coincidence that bloodsuckers have given rise to many legends, and they are sometimes credited - completely, however, unfairly - even with homicide.

It is known that a vampire bloodsucker is not able to suck out more than a tablespoon of blood in a day, and livestock in South America do not particularly suffer from bat attacks. The wounds heal quickly, and deaths from blood loss never happens at all. Another thing is that bloodsuckers sometimes carry dangerous diseases, such as rabies. A few decades ago, a plague broke out in South America among horses. The cause of the death remained unclear, but many zoologists believed that it was bloodsucking vampires that carried the pathogens of the disease.

Finally, the most common among bats are insectivorous bats. Here are leather, and earflaps, and leaf-beards, and leaf-beards, and folded-lips, and horseshoes ... you can’t list them all.

The voracity of bats is comparable, perhaps, with the voracity of their "named brothers" - common mice, from the order of rodents. Brown leather, for example, can destroy about a thousand insects in an hour. And Mexican folded lips in only one state of Texas absorb a breathtaking amount of insects in a year with a total weight of 20 thousand tons!

To intercept!

Now it's time to get back to echolocation. Without the ingenious equipment that nature has provided bats, they would hardly have been able to hunt moths, flies and beetles, birds and fish so effectively.

Schematically, the matter looks like this: the animal emits very short ultrasonic pulses in flight, the echo reflected from stationary and moving objects returns to it, the sound picture is analyzed in the brain of the bat, iterating over the hunting options, choosing the optimal solution, then changing course, attacking the nearest an insect, and... the target is hit! By the way, quite often bats catch their prey with their wing, and then lick it off the membrane with their tongue. But they grab and fall!

The outlined scheme is very complicated. Secondly, ultrasonics in air quickly decay. Therefore, the optimal target detection range 4060 centimeters, one and a half to two meters is already the limit. Secondly, in a minute, a bat, it turns out, can catch up to 15 midges while the flight path changes dramatically: the animal dives, makes loops, flips, slides onto the wing, enters a tailspin, the aerobatics technique is amazing! And the flight speed is thirdly 2030 kilometers per hour! What a powerful "computer" a bat must have in order to in the blink of an eye (in the "blink of an ear"!) as a rule, no more than half a second passes from target detection to catching prey to make the most complex calculations, solve the problem of two non-uniformly moving bodies in three-dimensional space, determine in what direction, what size, with what speed and what the target is moving (an incidental task to determine the structure of the body surface by the reflected impulse) and give the appropriate commands to your limbs, to the whole body: to intercept!

It may seem that echolocation for bats is fundamentally impossible. Let's imagine: the signal reaches the insect, it perceives the ultrasound, and it still has time to react, while the echo returns to the hunter. Has evolution not taken this possibility into account and given insects a chance for salvation, for an escape maneuver? Gave. There are chances. But meager. Some moths, having received an ultrasonic "warning", fold their wings and fall to the ground like a stone; others begin to abruptly change their flight course, scour the air. And yet, bats hunt almost unerringly! They have time to intercept the target in almost any situation.

The fact is that a bat orients itself in flight not by a sound beam or beam, but by a sound field: it evaluates many echo signals reflected from different surfaces. When something similar to prey appears in the field of sound vision, the nature of the signals changes: the flyer emits a series of ultrashort pulses that can instantly “ring out” the surrounding space at different levels of echolocation. Thus, the duration of a single pulse of the brown bat ranges from 0.3 to 2 milliseconds. And in such an extremely short period of time (here the sound manages to run only 1060 centimeters), the animal manages to modulate the signal over a wide range: it changes the sound frequency by a whole octave and freely passes from a narrowly focused beam to a wide frontal beam. Naturally, the returned echo is simply saturated with information. Depending on the hunting conditions, a bat can emit from 10 to 200 or more such impulses per second. Tricks insects do not help.

In our technological age, it is easy to find a comparison for a bat: it quite bears the analogy with an all-weather fighter-interceptor equipped with a radar and an on-board computer. But it is even more interesting to apply the amazing properties of bats to humans: only in this way can one measure the distance separating them from us.

Imagine that we live in a world of pitch darkness. In our mouth we have a light source that hits 3040 meters. To navigate in the dark, we often, often blink this lamp, and besides, we constantly “run” over a wide range of frequencies: from infrared radiation to ultraviolet. We can focus a beam of light into a thin beam, or we can illuminate a vast space in front of us. Not only that: we tend to selectively use the visible spectrum we see in orange, then in blue, then in yellow light, thus, we have a system of constantly changing filters before our eyes. Let's learn something else. Some species of bats for example, the snub-nosed leafbeard straighten the skin folds around the mouth in flight, turning them into a trumpet: why not a megaphone? Developing the fantastic image of a "man-spotlight", let's draw the following analogy: the lamp in our mouth is also equipped with a reflector, and binoculars with enlightened optics are attached to our eyes.

We may or may not like this image, but the translation from the language of sound into the language of light more familiar to us illustrates auditory vision quite accurately and characterizes the abilities of our flyers abilities that have been improving for at least fifty million years (this is the age of the most ancient fossil bat, and it is extremely similar to modern bats).

In a sea of sounds

Now the picture of echolocation seems to have become more understandable. Bats see beautifully and variously (you have to use such a strange phrase) with the help of ultrasound. But let's ask ourselves the following question: what is the sharpness of their vision? How efficient is the onboard computer, the mouse brain?

Experiments have shown that bats are, in principle, capable of detecting in flight and bending around even ultra-thin threads - only 50 microns thick. But that's not all. It turned out that the mouse computer has ... an amazing memory!

They set up an experiment. The wires were stretched in such a way that a complex spatial structure was formed, and a bat was launched into this three-dimensional labyrinth. The animal flew right through it, naturally, never hitting the wires with its wing. Flew twice, thrice ... Then the wires were removed and replaced with thin invisible rays of photovoltaic devices. And what? The mouse flew through the maze again! She exactly repeated all the turns, all the spirals of her previous path, and not once did the photocell register an error, and now the labyrinth existed only in the imagination of the mouse. Of course, you can turn things around so that the experiment just refutes the existence of mouse intelligence: there are no delays, the direct path is free, who needs this aerobatics? But for scientists, the flight of a bat in an imaginary maze is the best proof of its adaptive abilities, its high behavioral skills and excellent memory.

The experimenters also gave the bats a quick wits task. A handful of metal or plastic objects of various shapes are thrown in front of a brown leather soaring in the air, and among them is a worm. Although in nature such tasks somehow do not occur to the kozhan, however, he snatches the worm from the garbage thrown in front of him without difficulty.

Bats are just swimming in a sea of sounds. The echo replaces their sight, touch, maybe, to some extent, smell. And it is very good for us people that the dialogues of bats with environment run in the ultrasonic range. Otherwise... otherwise we would go deaf very soon. After all, bats scream very loudly. Acoustics have determined that the sound emitted by the brown bat and measured at its mouth is 20 times louder than the noise of a jackhammer operating at a distance of several meters from the experimenter. Some types of tropical bats talk very quietly, "whisper", but there are those that scream even three times louder than the brown bat.

Alvin Novik, an American bat specialist, MD, stated: “I determined the volume of the impulse of the Malayan hairless folded lip, an animal the size of a blue jay, at 145 decibels. This is comparable to the noise level of a jet aircraft taking off.”

Biologists are closely studying bats - these "dolphins of the night sky", according to the figurative definition of one naturalist: here we have in mind not only the properties of sound vision, but also the extraordinary mental abilities of bats. Scientists hope that observing the behavior of bats will help answer a very important question: how does the animal's brain process and use the information it receives from the senses? And the answer to this question will ultimately allow you to understand the work human brain.

A bat is an animal that belongs to the class of mammals, order bats, suborder bats (lat. Microchiroptera).

Bats got their name not because they are relatives belonging to the order of rodents, but most likely due to their small size and the sounds they make, similar to a mouse squeak.

Bat - description, structure. What does a bat look like?

Chiroptera are the only mammals on Earth that can fly. Often this entire detachment is mistakenly called bats, but in fact it is not. The order of bats includes the family of fruit bats (lat. Pteropodidae), which does not belong to the suborder of bats (lat. Microchiroptera). Fruit bats, often called flying dogs, flying foxes, fruit bats, differ from bats in their structure, habits and abilities.

Bats are small mammals. The smallest representative of the suborder is the pig-nosed bat (lat. Craseonycteris thonglongyai). Its weight is 1.7-2.0 g, body length varies from 2.9 to 3.3 cm, and the wingspan reaches 16 cm. This is one of the smallest animals in the world. One of the largest bats is the giant false vampire (lat. Vampyrum spectrum), which has a wingspan of up to 70-75 cm, a wing width of 15-16 cm and a weight of 150-200 g.

The structure of the skull in different species of bats is different, as well as the structure and number of teeth. Both depend on the nutrition of the species. For example, in a nectar-eating tailless long-tongued leaf-bearer (lat. Glossophaga soricina) the front of the skull is elongated to accommodate its long tongue, with which it gets food. Bats, like other mammals, have a heterodont dental system, including incisors, canines, premolars and molars. Individuals that eat insects with thick chitinous coatings have larger teeth and longer fangs than those that eat soft-shelled insects. Small insectivorous bats can have up to 38 small teeth, while vampires have only 20. Vampires do not require many teeth, since they do not need to chew food, but their fangs, designed to make a bleeding wound on the victim's body, are razor-sharp. In fruit-eating bats, the upper and lower cheek teeth resemble mortars and pestles in which fruits are crushed.

Many bats have large ears, such as the brown earflap (lat. Plecotus auritus), and bizarre nasal outgrowths, like those of horseshoe bats. These features affect the echolocation abilities of the bat.

In the course of evolution, the forelimbs of bats were transformed into wings. The humerus shortened, and the fingers lengthened, they serve as the frame of the wing. The first finger with a claw is free. With its help, animals move in a shelter and manipulate food. In some species, for example, in smoky bats (lat. Furipteridae), the first finger is non-functional. The second, third and fourth fingers strengthen the part of the wing between the first and fifth and form the interdigital membrane, or apex of the wing. The fifth finger is extended to the entire width of the wing. The humerus and shorter radius support the trunk membrane, or base of the wing, which acts as a load-bearing surface. The speed of a bat depends on the shape of its wings. They can be highly elongated or slightly elongated. By the shape of the wing, one can judge the lifestyle of a bat. Wings with a small aspect ratio do not allow to develop high speed, but make it possible to maneuver well among tree crowns. Highly elongated wings are designed for high-speed flight in open space.

Bats of small and medium size fly at a speed of 11 to 54 km/h while searching for prey. The fastest flying animal is the Brazilian folded lip (lat. Tadarida brasiliensis) from the genus of bulldog bats, which is capable of speeds up to 160 km / h.

Taken from: www.steveparish-natureconnect.com.au

The hind limbs of bats, unlike other mammals, are turned to the sides with the knee joints back. Animals hang on them in shelters with the help of well-developed claws.

Some species are able to move on all four limbs. For example, an ordinary vampire (lat. Desmodus rotundus) during the hunt, landing on the body of the victim or next to it, he approaches on foot to the place where he bites.

Bats have tails of various lengths:

partially enclosed in the interfemoral membrane, with a free tip located on top of it, like in sac-wings (lat. Emballonuridae);
completely enclosed in the interfemoral membrane, like in myotis (lat. Myotis);
protruding beyond the interfemoral membrane, as in folded lips (lat. Molossidae);
long free tail, like a mousetail (lat.Rhinopoma).

The body, and sometimes the limbs of mammals are covered with hair. The coat of a bat can be even or shaggy, short or not very, sparse or thick.

The color of bats is dominated by gray, brown, black tones. Some animals are lighter in color - in fawn, whitish, yellowish shades. Occasionally there are also bright specimens. For example, in the Mexican fish-eating bat (lat. Noctilio leporinus) fur is yellow or orange.

Taken from: www.mammalwatching.com

There are white bats with yellow ears and a nose - these are Honduran white bats (lat. Ectophylla alba).

Taken from faculty.washington.edu

In nature, there are bats with a body that is not covered with hair. Two species of naked-skinned bats are known from Southeast Asia and the Philippines (lat. Cheiromeles torquatus and Cheiromeles parvidens) they are almost completely devoid of wool, only sparse hairs remain.

Bats have unique hearing. It is the leading sense organ in these animals. For example, false horseshoe bats (lat. Hipposideridae) catch the rustle of insects swarming in the grass or under a layer of leaves. On the ears of many bats there is a tragus - a narrow skin-cartilaginous outgrowth rising from the base of the ear. It serves to amplify and better perceive the sound.

Taken from: blogs.crikey.com.au

Vision in bats is poorly developed. There is no color vision at all. But still, bats are not blind, and some even see quite well. For example, the California leaf-bearer (lat. Macrotus californicus) sometimes, with appropriate lighting, looking for prey with the help of the eyes.

Bats have not lost their sense of smell. According to the smell of the female Brazilian folded lip (lat. Tadarida brasiliensis) find their young. Some bats distinguish members of their colony from strangers. Big night bats (lat. Myotis myotis) and New Zealand bats (lat. Mystacina tuberculata) smell prey under a layer of foliage. New World leaf-bearers (lat. Phyllostomidae) find the fruits of nightshade plants by smell.

How do bats navigate in the dark?

The main means of orienting bats in space (for example, in dark caves) is echolocation. Animals emit ultrasonic signals that bounce off objects and echo back. Sounds originating in the throat, the animal makes through the mouth or directs them to the nose, radiating through the nostrils. In such individuals, the nostrils are surrounded by bizarre outgrowths that form and focus sound.

People only hear how bats squeak, because the ultrasonic range in which these animals transmit echolocation signals is inaccessible to the human ear. Unlike humans, a bat analyzes the signal reflected from an object and determines its location and size. The mouse "echo sounder" is so accurate that it captures objects with a diameter of 0.1 mm. In addition, winged mammals clearly distinguish all kinds of objects: for example, different types trees. Bats hunt using echolocation. By reflected ultrasonic waves, winged hunters in complete darkness not only find the prey, but also determine its size and speed. During the search for prey, the frequency of sounds reaches 10 oscillations per second, increasing to 200-250 just before the attack. In addition, the bat can squeak when inhaling, exhaling, and even while chewing food. Before the discovery of ultrasound, these mammals were thought to have extrasensory perception.

Representatives of the suborder are able to make both low-frequency and high-frequency sounds, and at the same time. The animal screams and listens at a speed incomprehensible to humans. Some bats, hunting nocturnal insects, emit up to 250 calls per second when approaching them. Some potential victims (, crickets) have developed the ability to hear the squeak of a bat in advance and respond to it with a deceptive maneuver or falling to the ground.

By the way, echolocation is developed not only in bats, but also in seals, shrews, scoop butterflies, and also in some birds.

Where do bats live?

Bats are widely distributed throughout the world, with the exception of Antarctica, the Arctic and some oceanic islands. These animals are most numerous and diverse in the tropics and subtropics.

Bats are nocturnal or crepuscular animals. During daylight hours, they hide in shelters, which can be located in the most different places underground and above ground. These can be caves, rock crevices, quarries, adits, various buildings built by man. Many varieties of bats live on trees: in hollows, bark crevices, in branches, in foliage. Some mice take refuge in original shelters, such as under bird nests, in bamboo stalks, and even in cobwebs. American suckers (lat. Thyroptera) roost in young folded leaves that unfold after the animals leave their homes. Leaf-bearers-builders (lat. Uroderma Peters), biting the leaves of palm trees and other plants along certain lines, they get a semblance of an awning from them.

Some species of bats prefer to live alone or in small groups, such as the lesser horseshoe bat (lat. Rhinolophus hipposideros), but they mostly stay in colonies. For example, females of the great bat (lat. Myotis myotis) gather in colonies from several tens to several thousand individuals. The record for the number of members is one of the colonies of the Brazilian folded lips (lat. Tadarida brasiliensis), numbering up to 20 million individuals.

How do bats hibernate?

Bats that live in cold and temperate latitudes, in the cold season hibernate, which can last up to 8 months. Some species carry out seasonal migrations over distances of up to 1000 km, such as the red hairtail (lat. Lasiurus borealis).

Why do bats sleep upside down?

Chiroptera stand out among mammals not only because they can fly, but also because they know how to rest: during daytime rest or hibernation bats hang upside down on their hind legs. This position allows the animals to instantly fly straight from their starting position, simply falling down: less energy is spent this way, and time is saved in case of danger. Suspended upside down, bats cling to wall ledges, tree branches, etc. with their claws. Being in this position, the animals do not get tired, because the tendon mechanism of closing the claws of their hind limbs is designed in such a way that it does not require the expenditure of muscle energy. Some species, settling down to rest, are wrapped in wings. Species such as large bats cluster in dense heaps, and small horseshoe bats always hang on the ceiling or vaults of the cave at some distance from each other.

What do bats eat?

Most bats are insectivorous. Some catch insects on the fly, others pick up bugs sitting on the foliage. Among tropical species there are those who feed exclusively on the fruits, pollen and nectar of plants. But there are also varieties that eat both fruits and insects. For example, the New Zealand bat (lat. Mystacina tuberculata) feeds on various invertebrates: insects, earthworms, centipedes and, but, at the same time, consumes fruits, nectar and pollen. The diet of fish-eating bats (lat. Noctilio) consists of fish and other aquatic inhabitants. Panamanian large leaf-bearer (lat. Phyllostomus hastatus) eats small birds and mammals. There are also species that feed exclusively on the blood of wild and domestic animals, some birds, and sometimes humans. These are vampire bats, among which 3 species stand out: terry-legged (lat. Diphylla ecaudata), white-winged (lat. Diaemus youngi) and ordinary (lat. Desmodus rotundus) vampires. In other places the globe other types of vampires live, but they don’t drink blood.

Types of bats, photos and names

Below is a brief description of several types of bats.

White leaf-bearing(lat. Ectophylla alba)

A tailless species that belongs to the genus of white leaf-bearers. These are small animals with a body length of 3.7-4.7 cm and a weight of no more than 7 grams. Leaf-nosed females are smaller than males. The body color of the animal corresponds to its name: the boiling-white back passes into the sacrum of a grayish tint, the lower abdomen also has a gray color. The nose and ears of the animal have a yellow tone, and the eyes are underlined by a gray frame around them. White leaf-bearers live in South and Central America, namely in countries such as Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama. Animals prefer moist evergreen forests, climbing no higher than seven hundred meters above sea level. Usually these white bats live alone or live in small groups of no more than 6 individuals. Animals feed at night. The diet of these bats includes fruits and some types of ficus.

Giant evening party(lat. Nyctalus lasiopterus)

This is the largest variety of bats in Russia and European countries. The length of the body of the animal varies from 8.4 to 10.4 cm, and the weight of the bat is 41 - 76 g. The wingspan of the animal reaches 41-46 cm. The giant evening has a brownish or fawn-red back color and a lighter abdomen. Darker coloring prevails on the head behind the ears. The bat lives in forests, and its range extends from France to the Volga region and the Caucasus. Probably, the species is also found in the countries of the Middle East. Often the animal inhabits the hollows of trees together with other representatives of the suborder, less often forms its own colonies. The wintering places of this species are unknown; apparently, the animals make long-distance seasonal flights. In nature, the bat eats enough large insects(butterflies, beetles), as well as small passerine birds, which it catches in the air at fairly high altitudes. This bat is listed in the Red Book.

Pig-nosed bat (lat.Craseonycteris thonglongyai)

This is the smallest bat in the world, which, due to its modest size, is called the bumblebee mouse. The body length of the animal is 2.9-3.3 cm, and the weight does not exceed 2 grams. The ears of the mammal are quite large, with a large tragus. The nose looks like a pig's snout. The color of the animal is usually grayish or dark brown with a slight shade of red, the animal's abdomen is lighter. Pig-nosed bats are endemic to southwestern Thailand and nearby Myanmar. Animals hunt in groups of up to five individuals at night. They fly over bamboo and teak trees in search of insects that sit on the leaves of trees, and when they find food, they hover over prey right in the air due to their small size and wing structure. The number of pig-nosed bats in the world is extremely low. These animals are among the ten rarest species on Earth and are listed in the International Red Book.

Taken from: www.thewildlifediaries.com

Two-color leather (two-color bat) (lat.Vespertilio murinus)

It has a body length of up to 6.4 cm and a wingspan of 27 to 33 cm. A bat weighs from 12 to 23 grams. The animal got its name because of the color of the fur, which combines two colors. The back is colored in shades from red to dark brown, and the belly is white or gray. The ears, wings and face of the animal are black or dark brown. These bats live on the territory of Eurasia - from England and France to the Pacific coast. Northern border of the range: Norway, central Russia, Southern Siberia; southern border: southern Italy, Iran, Himalayas, Northeast China. The habitat of the two-colored kozhan is mountains, steppes and woodlands. In Western European countries, these bats are often found in major cities. Two-color leathers do not mind being close to other types of bats, with which they share common shelters: attics, cornices, tree hollows, rock cracks. Animals prey on, caddis flies, moths and other small insects throughout the night. The species is endangered and protected in many countries.

Taken from: www.aku-bochum.de

Greater harelip (fish-eating bat)(lat.Noctilio leporinus )

It has a body length of 6.5-13.2 cm and a weight of 60 to 78 g. The coloration of males and females varies: the former have a reddish or bright red body, the latter are painted in dull grayish-brownish shades. A light stripe runs from the back of the head to the end of the back of the animal. These bats are found from the south of Mexico to the northern part of Argentina, they are found in the Antilles, the southern Bahamas and the island of Trinidad. Chiroptera settle near the water in caves, rock crevices, and also climb into hollows and tree crowns. Large harelips feed on large insects and aquatic inhabitants of fresh water bodies: fish and crustaceans. Sometimes they hunt during the day.

Taken from: reddit.com

Taken from: mammalart.wordpress.com

Water bat (Dobanton's bat)(lat.Myotis daubentonii)

It got its name in honor of the French naturalist Louis Jean-Marie Daubanton. This small animal has a body length of no more than 4.5 - 5.5 cm and weighs from 7 to 15 g. The wingspan is 24 - 27.5 cm. The color of the fur is inconspicuous: dark, brownish. The top is darker than the bottom. The habitat of the animal extends from Great Britain and France to Sakhalin, Kamchatka and the Ussuri Territory. The northern border runs near 60°N, the southern border runs from Southern Italy, along the south of Ukraine, the lower Volga, through northern Kazakhstan, Altai, northern Mongolia, to Primorsky Krai. The life of a bat is connected with water bodies, although animals are found far from them. During the day, they can climb into a hollow or attic, and with the onset of night they begin to hunt. These bats fly slowly, often fluttering over the surface of water bodies, and catch medium-sized insects, mainly mosquitoes. If there is no reservoir nearby, then the water bats hunt among the trees. By destroying blood-sucking insects, water bats contribute to the fight against malaria and tularemia.

Brown earflap ( he is ordinary earflap)(lat. Plecotus auritus)

It has a body length of 4-5 cm and a weight of 6-12 g. The body is covered with uneven dull fur. Ushan habitats cover almost all of Eurasia, including Portugal in the western part of the range and up to the Kamchatka Peninsula in the eastern part. Also, brown earflaps are found in northern Africa, in Iran and central China. The lifestyle of bats is sedentary. These winged animals hibernate not far from their places of stay in summer time, inhabiting caves, various cellars, well log cabins and hollows of powerful trees, sometimes meeting in the attics of houses that were insulated for the winter. On the hunt with a bat big ears flies out in complete darkness and hunts until sunrise.

Bat-dwarf ( he is small or small-headed bat) (lat. Pipistrelluspipistrellus)

Quite a numerous species belonging to the genus of the inexperienced, the family of smooth-nosed bats. This is the smallest species of bats in Europe. The body of the dwarf bat resembles the body of a mouse, its length is 38-45 mm, and the length of the tail is 28-33 mm. The mass of a dwarf bat is usually 3-6 g. The wingspan of this small bat reaches 19-22 cm. The body is covered with short, even hair, which is brown in the European form of the animal, and pale grayish-yellow in the Asian. The lower part of the body has a lighter color. The dwarf bat is widespread in Eurasia: from west to east from Spain to Western China, and from north to south from southern Norway to Asia Minor and Iran. This species of bats, in addition to Eurasia, is found in North Africa. Settles in places associated with human habitation, does not occur in the depths of forests and steppes, avoids caves, sometimes settles in hollows of trees. In winter, bats make seasonal migrations. Adult males are extremely rare in the spring-summer period, as they keep alone or gather in small groups separately from females and young individuals. Bats hunt after sunset. They fly low, in the lower part of tree crowns. The food of this tiny mouse is made up of small insects. The dwarf bat is one of the most useful bats in the Eurasian fauna.

Great horseshoe (lat. Rhinolophus ferrumequinum)

The dimensions of the animal are 5.2-7.1 cm, the wingspan reaches 35-40 cm, and the mass of the bat is 13-34 g. The color of the back varies depending on the habitat from dark chocolate to pale smoky fawn. The belly of the animal is whitish with a gray tint, lighter than the color of the back. Young animals have a monochromatic grayish color. The species is distributed in northern Africa (Morocco, Algeria), in Eurasia, the habitat of the horseshoe bat extends from Great Britain and Portugal through mountainous areas Central Europe, covers the Balkans, the countries of Asia Minor, the Caucasus, the Himalayas, Tibet, and ends in the south of China, the Korean Peninsula and Japan. On the territory of Russia, this bat is found in the Crimea and the North Caucasus, covering the range from Krasnodar Territory to Dagestan. The habitual places of settlement of the horseshoe bat are mountain crevices, grottoes, cellars and ruins, as well as caves. In Central Asia, these animals live under the domes of tombs and mosques. Bats live relatively sedentary, making local seasonal migrations. They hibernate in damp caves and dungeons. They hunt low above the ground for moths and small beetles. The large horseshoe bat is listed in the Red Book of Russia.

Ordinary Vampire ( he is big bloodsucker, or desmode) (lat.Desmodus rotundus )

most numerous and known species real vampires. Largely due to this genus, bats have their bad reputation. An ordinary vampire really feeds on blood, including drinking human blood. This animal is small in size: the length of the bat is 8 cm, the weight is 50 g, the wingspan is 20 cm. Bloodsucking vampires live in large colonies. During the day they sleep in the hollows of old trees and caves. An ordinary vampire flies out to hunt late at night, when his future victims are immersed in a deep sleep. He attacks large ungulates, such as,. It can also bite a person sleeping in an open area or in a house with open and unprotected mesh windows. With the help of hearing and smell, vampire bats find a sleeping victim, sit on it or next to it, crawl to the place where the vessels come close to the surface of the skin, bite through it and lick the blood flowing from the wound. A special secret contained in the saliva, which the vampire wets the victim's skin, makes the bite painless and affects blood clotting. As a result, the victim may die from blood loss, as the blood flows out for a long time without clotting. But not only this dangerous ordinary vampire. With its bite, the virus of rabies, plague and other diseases can be transmitted. Vampires also suffer from rabies. The spread of disease within the species is due, among other things, to the propensity of vampires to share regurgitated blood with hungry kin, a habit extremely rare among animals. Vampire bats live only in the tropics and subtropics of Central and South America. There are other kinds of vampires in other parts of the world, but they don't feed on blood. Thanks to these three types of bats, a negative attitude towards bats, which are not only harmless, but also useful animals, has taken root.

Why don't bats just yell "ay"?

Specific sounds - the basis unique ability bats "see" ears. The fact is that they not only listen to the noises in the world around them, but also produce them themselves. Bats regularly emit ultrasound and listen to its reflection - an echo.

A person can also hear the echo of their own voice. When you are in a gorge or in front of a large rock, you can shout “ay!” and the rock will echo back. But if there is a tree in front of you and you shout "ay!", then the tree will not answer. There will be no echo because the person's voice is too low. Here is the ultrasound of a bat - another matter. Sounds of such a high frequency will cause an echo even when hitting a relatively small obstacle, such as a butterfly. In science, this principle, perfectly mastered by the bat, is called “echolocation”.

In flight, the bat constantly emits ultrasonic signals. They bounce off trees, walls and insects and return to the animal. In the process, the sounds change slightly, just as the echo slightly distorts the voice. The ears of bats are so large that animals perfectly perceive and analyze all ultrasonic signals. Where does the sound come from: right or left? Is it a bush or a tree? If the tree is deciduous or coniferous? The brain of a bat receives all this information from the response ultrasonic signal. Some species can even determine what kind of tasty insect is flying in front of them - a mosquito or a butterfly, and how it moves - rather diagonally to the right back or to the left forward.

ECHOLOCATION FOR THE BLIND?

If echolocation works so well in bats, couldn't it be used to help blind people navigate space? Theoretically, this is possible, and the first practical experiments have even been carried out. With the help of a special device, ultrasounds were converted into sounds of the normal range - so that they could be heard with an ordinary ear. But, unfortunately, most have found it difficult to analyze these additional signals. For many years, people have become accustomed to navigate by the usual sounds of the world around them, listen to cars, pedestrians, and voices. New reflected signals overload their hearing and only confuse them more.

A person cannot even imagine how and what bats hear. These are completely different auditory impressions, unusual for us. After all, bats not only constantly hear the echo of their own signals. They hear both the signals themselves and the signals of other bats.

The tiny brain of a bat sorts and analyzes all this diversity. The easiest situation for him is to fly at high altitude, away from obstacles. Here the animals emit few signals and receive few responses. But what about when a bat hunts in the forest, is forced to emit signals frequently and perceive the echo from every leaf on the trees? How can one not get lost in the abundance of sounds and maintain a clear vision - or still "hearing" - of the situation? And most importantly: how to select the most necessary signal in the confusion - an echo from an insect?

Zoologists who study bats have already found out that these animals can emit a variety of signals depending on the environment. For example, sounds that are extremely high at the beginning and drop sharply at the end. The screams can be long or short. Animals can make relatively long pauses between sounds or make them one after another. For example, in pursuit of insects, as they approach their prey, they make sounds more and more often. You can compare it to the blinking of a flashlight if you quickly turn it on and off. The more often you turn on the flashlight in a dark room, the better you see where the older brother is sneaking, who just stole your cake. Therefore, before grabbing an insect, a bat makes especially many short sounds - up to two hundred signals per second. Conversely, when a bat flies in free space, it emits infrequent but long signals, five to twenty times per second, and waits for which direction the echo will come from.

Zoologists have found that bats can even detect insects crawling on leaves. First they must listen with their gigantic ears for ordinary sounds. When they hear the rustling of legs on a leaf or a subtle buzzing, they will head towards the beetle, sending out ultrasonic signals, and grab it.

BAT DETECTOR OR BAT DETECTOR

The human ear cannot hear the ultrasounds of bats, but with the help of special devices you can convert their signals into sounds in the audible range. These devices - bat detectors, or beta detectors - receive ultrasound and lower its frequency to a level that can be perceived by humans. If one day you find yourself in the territory where bats hunt, and turn on such a detector, you will be surprised what noise is during this hunt - and to us it seems to be silent.

It was not easy to find out these facts about bats. For years, many scientists have puzzled over how animals manage to catch prey in pitch darkness. The Italian naturalist Lazzaro Spallanzani managed to get closer to unraveling this mystery. In 1793, he conducted an experiment by launching bats into a dark room, through which he stretched a wire in different directions. He attached a small bell to each wire. As he expected, the animals flew around the wire without touching it, so that not a single bell even tinkled. Then Spallanzani blindfolded the bats and launched them into the room again. This time he expected a ringing, but the mice again flew in complete silence. Apparently they didn't need eyes to fly. And only when Spallanzani plugged the mice's ears did a decent ringing begin. Without the help of their ears, the animals could not fly around obstacles, that is, their location system was based on hearing. True, for Spallanzani it remained a mystery how the bats heard the wire.

The biologist who figured out how bat ears "work" was named Donald Griffin. In 1938, he went to visit a fellow physicist and brought with him a cage of bats. He was going to find out how the signals of bats in the audible range are arranged. By chance, his colleague's recording device was also tuned to higher sounds - to ultrasound. Both researchers were only amazed at how many sounds bats make, while they themselves did not hear anything at all. And so the mystery was solved. Bats navigate using echolocation, that is, they “see” with their ears.

Thousands of bats belonging to the Mexican subspecies of the Brazilian fold-lip, living in Texas, sing songs during the flight, using the most complex combinations of syllables. True, the human ear is not able to appreciate the vocal abilities and skill of bats, since they communicate at ultrasonic frequencies.

Biologist Michael Smotherman of the Texas A&M University has tried to study the ways in which bat songs organize syllables and link their communication skills to specific areas of the brain.

“If we can figure out exactly which parts of the bat brain are responsible for communication, then we can better understand how the human brain generates and organizes complex sequences of communication signals,” the scientist says. - And, having understood the work of the human brain, we can offer various ways problem solving for people with speech disorders.

Smotherman's laboratory investigated the behavioral and physiological aspects of information transmission in bats. In the first case, seasonal variations and differences in the transmission of information by males and females were studied, and in the second, they tried to localize brain areas active during communication.

Brazilian folded lips, when communicating, emit sound vibrations with higher frequencies than those that can be picked up by the human ear (human perception range 16 - 20,000 Hz). True, people can hear fragments of bat songs if they sing part of the phrase in a “lower voice”.

Communication of bats at high frequencies is due to their ability to echolocation. They create ultrasonic waves in the frequency range from 40 to 100 kHz and orient themselves in space, determining directions and distances to surrounding objects using reflected waves. The higher the frequency of the sound, the finer details the bats can distinguish and the more accurately they build their flight path.

The study involved 75 Brazilian folded labia living in Smotherman's laboratory. The studied specimens were not isolated from the wild, but were collected in various buildings such as churches and schools. According to the scientist, these bats are not at all aggressive and, due to their friendly nature, are excellent specimens for research.

The call of the Brazilian fold-lip, as it turned out, includes from 15 to 20 syllables.

Each male sings his own song during courtship. Although the "melodies" of the courtship songs sound about the same for everyone, the performers compose individual appeals by combining different syllables. In addition to songs addressed to members of the opposite sex, bats use complex voice messages to identify each other, as well as to indicate social status, definitions territorial boundaries, when raising offspring and when countering individuals that invaded someone else's territory.

"No other mammal other than humans has the ability to communicate using such complex vocal sequences," says Smotherman.

The songs of bats are reminiscent of the songs of birds. Over many years of research, scientists have been able to identify the parts of the brain of birds responsible for singing, but, according to experts, the brain of birds is very different from the brain of mammals, and therefore it is rather difficult to use knowledge about the characteristics of vocal communication in birds to understand the characteristics of human speech.

The mammalian brain is built in much the same way, and bats have many of the same structures that are characteristic of the human brain. Therefore, conclusions about the features of voice communication in humans can well be drawn on the basis of the study of vocal messages sent by bats.

“The vocal center responsible for organizing complex sequences of syllables is somewhat higher in bats, and we have not yet been able to determine exactly where it is located,” says Smotherman. “At present, we use a molecular method to determine the areas of the brain active during singing.”

In the future, scientists hope to apply their findings in solving problems associated with speech disorders. According to the scientist, the idea that human speech is a unique feature severely limits research in this area. “Compared to the achievements of other areas of neuroscience, we are trailing behind, because we have not yet fully understood the fundamental issues of the functioning of voice communications in humans,” complains Smotherman.

Although bats are excellent at navigating in space using ultrasound, this mechanism only works well at short distances. As shown, during long-distance flights, bats use the Earth's magnetic field thanks to the "built-in magnetic compass."