Bats practically all over the world live next to humans, but, surprisingly, they have begun to be properly studied recently. Suffice it to say that back in the middle of the twentieth century, when scientists in other branches of science were already splitting atoms with might and main and actively using X-rays, their colleagues used methods to study the abilities of bats by pulling strings along the route of their flight and paper caps with holes put on their heads. ...
Human emotions towards these small animals (the vast majority weigh up to 10 grams) range in the area of fear, which can be respectful or almost animal. The role is played by not the most attractive appearance of creatures with webbed wings, and the sounds they make, and the nocturnal lifestyle, and chilling legends about vampire bats.
There are really few pleasant things about the only flying mammals, but they also do not carry any mortal threat. The main trouble associated with bats - modern biology refers to this order as bats - the transfer of infectious diseases. The mice themselves have excellent immunity, but they spread diseases no worse than their flightless namesakes. There is no reason to expect a direct danger from animals that cut up caught mosquitoes by eating only fillets.
Bats very often settle near human habitation or even directly in it - in attics, in basements, etc. However, unlike other representatives of the animal and feathered world, bats practically do not interact with humans. This is also one of the reasons why human knowledge of bats is rather limited. But scientists and researchers managed to establish some interesting facts.
1. Based on the information contained in popular science sources, biologists still continue to classify bats, foxes, dogs and other half-blind animals flying with the help of echolocation and webbed wings. Such distinctive features, of course, obvious to every naturalist, are used, such as the absence of a claw on the second toe of the forelimbs, a shortened facial section of the skull, or the presence of a tragus and antigus on the outer ears. The main criterion in this case is still recognized as size and weight. If some kind of a bird flies around you, it's a bat. If this flying creature causes an irresistible desire to run away by its size, then you are lucky to encounter one of the rare representatives of fruit bats. The wingspan of these birds can reach one and a half meters. They do not attack people, but the psychological effect of a flock of flying dogs circling dangerously close at dusk is difficult to exaggerate. At the same time, fruit bats look like many times enlarged copies of bats, which at the everyday level gives much more reason to unite them than to separate them. True, unlike carnivorous bats, fruit bats eat exclusively fruits and leaves.
2. The guess that mice have some kind of special feeling that allows them to avoid collisions with obstacles even in the dark was expressed by the professor of the University of Padua, Abbot Spallanzani at the end of the 18th century. However, the state of the art at that time did not allow one to discover this feeling experimentally. Is that the Geneva doctor Zhurine guessed to stick up the ears of bats with wax and state that they are almost completely helpless even with open eyes. The great biologist Georges Cuvier decided that since God did not give man organs for perceiving what bats feel, then this perception is from the devil, and it is impossible to study the abilities of bats (here it is, the indirect influence of popular superstitions through religion on advanced science). Only at the end of the 1930s was it possible, using modern equipment, to prove that mice use completely natural and godly ultrasonic waves.
3. In Antarctica, there are supposedly creatures very similar to huge bats. They call them cryones. The American polar explorer Alex Gorwitz, whose lives were taken away by the cryones, was the first to describe them. Horvits saw both the bodies of his comrades, from which the bones were removed, and the cryons themselves, or rather, their eyes. He managed to scare off monsters the size of a man, possessing the body of a bat, with shots from a pistol. The American suggested that cryones can live only at ultra-low temperatures (-70 - -100 ° C). The heat scares them away, and even at temperatures of about -30 ° C they hibernate like warm-blooded animals when they get cold. In one-on-one conversations with Soviet polar explorers, Horowitz also received indirect admissions that the famous fire at Vostok station in 1982 was caused by a rocket launcher fired towards the cryon. The latter escaped, and a signal rocket hit an electric generator hangar, causing a fire that almost became fatal for polar explorers. The story turned out to match the Hollywood action movie, but it's not that no one, except Horvits, has seen Antarctic polar cryon mice. No one saw Gorvits himself even on the lists of American polar explorers. Soviet polar explorers, who miraculously survived the winter of 1982 at the Vostok station due to the fire, laughed when they learned about such an extravagant cause of the fire. The giant Antarctic bats turned out to be an idle invention of a journalist who remained unknown. And Antarctica is the only continent where even ordinary bats do not live.
4. The ancient Greek fabulist Aesop explained the nocturnal lifestyle of bats in a very original way. In one of his fables, he described a joint venture between a bat, a blackthorn and a dive. With the money borrowed by the bat, the blackthorn bought clothes, and the dive bought copper. But the ship on which the three were transferring the goods sank. Since then, the dive has been diving all the time in search of the drowned goods, the blackthorn clings to everyone's clothes - have they caught its cargo from the water, and the bat appears exclusively at night, fearing creditors. In another of Aesop's fables, the bat is much more cunning. When it is caught by a weasel claiming to hate birds, the winged creature is called a mouse. Once caught again, a bat is called a bird, because in the intervening time, the fooled weasel has declared war on mice.
5. In some European cultures and in China, the bat was considered a symbol of well-being, success in life, wealth. However, the Europeans treated these symbols in an extremely utilitarian way - to heighten the worship of the bat, it should first be killed. To save the horses from the evil eye, the Poles nailed a bat over the entrance to the stable. In other countries, the skin or body parts of a bat were sewn into outer clothing. In Bohemia, the right eye of a bat was put into a pocket in order to ensure invisibility in unseemly deeds, and the heart of the animal was taken in hand, dealing cards. In some countries, the corpse of a bat was buried under the doorstep. In ancient China, it was not the mockery of the killed animal that brought good luck, but the image of a bat, and the most common ornament with this animal was “Wu-Fu” - the image of five intertwined bats. They symbolized health, good luck, long life, equanimity and wealth.
6. Despite the fact that bats have been using ultrasound for hunting for at least several tens of millions of years (it is believed that bats lived on Earth simultaneously with dinosaurs), the evolutionary mechanisms of their potential victims practically do not work in this regard. Effective systems of "electronic warfare" against bats have developed only in a few species of butterflies. It has been known for a long time that ultrasonic signals are capable of producing some bear butterflies. They have developed a special organ that generates ultrasonic noise. This kind of transmitter is located on the butterfly's chest. Already in the 21st century, the ability to generate ultrasonic signals was discovered in three species of hawk moths living in Indonesia. These butterflies do without special organs - they use their genitals to generate ultrasound.
7. Even children know that mice use ultrasonic radar for orientation in space, and this is perceived as an obvious fact. But, in the end, ultrasonic waves differ from just sound and light only in frequency. Much more striking is not the way information is obtained, but the speed of its processing. Each of us has had a chance to make our way through the crowd. If this must be done quickly, collisions are inevitable, even if everyone in the crowd is extremely polite and helpful. And we solve the simplest problem - we move along the plane. And bats move in a volumetric space, sometimes filled with thousands of the same mice, and not only avoid collisions, but also quickly get to the intended target. Moreover, the brain of most bats weighs about 0.1 grams.
8. Observations of large, in the hundreds of thousands and millions of individuals, populations of bats have shown that such populations have at least the rudiments of a collective intelligence. This is most evident when flying out of cover. First, a group of "scouts" of several dozen individuals leaves them. Then the mass flight begins. He obeys certain rules - otherwise, with the simultaneous departure, for example, of hundreds of thousands of bats, there would be a crush, threatening mass death. In a complex and not yet studied system, bats form a kind of spiral, gradually climbing upward. In the USA, in the famous Carlsbad Caves National Park, an amphitheater has been built at the place of mass departure of bats for those wishing to admire the nightly flight. It lasts about three hours (the population is about 800,000 individuals), while only half of them fly out daily.
9. Carlsbad bats hold the record for the longest seasonal migration. In the fall, they travel south, covering a distance of 1,300 km. However, Moscow researchers of bats claim that the animals they ringed were caught in France, 1,200 km from the Russian capital. At the same time, a huge number of bats winter calmly in Moscow, hiding in relatively warm shelters - with all their uniformity, bats are sedentary and migratory. The reasons for this division have not yet been clarified.
10. In tropical and subtropical latitudes, fruit bats move after ripening fruits. The migration path of these large bats can be very long, but it is never too winding. Accordingly, the fate of the orchards that the bats came across on the way is sad. The locals reciprocate the bats - their meat is considered a delicacy, and during the day the bats are practically helpless, they are very easy to get. Their only salvation is height - they strive to cling to the branches of the tallest trees for daytime sleep.
11. Bats live up to 15 years, which is very long for their size and lifestyle. Therefore, the population increases not due to the rapid birth rate, but due to the greater survival rate of the cubs. The reproduction mechanism also helps. Bats mate in the fall, and a female can give birth to one or two cubs in May or June, with a pregnancy duration of 4 months. According to a plausible hypothesis, the female's body only after recovering from hibernation and having accumulated everything necessary for pregnancy, gives a signal, after which delayed conception begins. But this type of reproduction also has its drawback. After a sharp decline in numbers - as a result of a worsening climate or a reduction in the food supply - the population is recovering very slowly.
12. Baby bats are born very small and helpless, but develop quickly. already on the third - fourth day of life, babies are grouped into a kind of nursery. Interestingly, females find their children even in groups of dozens of newborns. For a week, the weight of the cubs doubles. By the 10th day of life, their eyes open. In the second week, teeth erupt and real fur appears. At the end of the third week, babies already start flying. On the 25th - 35th day, independent flights begin. At two months, the first molt occurs, after which a young bat can no longer be distinguished from a mature one.
13. The overwhelming majority of bats eat vegetable or small animal food (mosquitoes are a typical example for Russian latitudes). The ominous reputation of vampires for this animal is created by only three species living in Latin and South America. Representatives of these species really feed on exclusively warm blood of living birds and mammals, including humans. In addition to ultrasound, vampire bats also use infrared radiation. With the help of a special “sensor” on the face, they detect thin or open spots in the fur of animals. Having made a bite up to 1 cm long and up to 5 mm deep, vampires drink about a tablespoon of blood, which is usually comparable to half their weight. Vampire saliva contains substances that prevent blood from clotting and healing of a cut. Therefore, several animals can get drunk from one bite. It is this trait, and not blood loss, that is the main danger posed by vampires. Bats are potential carriers of infectious diseases, especially rabies. With each new individual adhering to the wound, the probability of infection increases exponentially. About the connection of bats with vampires, now seemingly going back into history, they started talking in Europe only after the publication of "Dracula" by Bram Stoker. Legends about bats drinking human blood and gnawing bones existed among the American Indians and some Asian tribes, but for the time being they were not known to Europeans.
14. Bats were at one time the priority of American strategy in the war against Japan in 1941-1945. On them, research and training, according to various estimates, spent from 2 to 5 million dollars. Bats, judging by the declassified information, did not turn into a lethal weapon solely thanks to the atomic bomb - it was recognized as more effective. It all started with the fact that the American dentist William Adams, visiting the Karslsbad caves, thought that each bat could be turned into an incendiary bomb weighing 10 - 20 g. Thousands of such bombs, dropped on paper-rack cities in Japan, would destroy many houses and even more potential soldiers and mothers of future soldiers. The concept was correct - during the tests, the Americans successfully burned several old hangars and even the car of the general who watched the bats exercises. Mice with tied containers of napalm climbed into such hard-to-reach places that it took too long to find and eliminate all fires in wooden structures. The disappointed William Adams wrote after the war that his project could be much more effective than an atomic bomb, but its implementation was prevented by the intrigues of generals and politicians at the Pentagon.
15. Bats do not build their own homes. They easily find a suitable refuge almost everywhere. This is facilitated by both their lifestyle and the structure of the body. Mice tolerate temperature fluctuations of 50 °, so the temperature in the habitat, although it matters, is not fundamental. Bats are much more sensitive to drafts.This is understandable - the air flow, even at a relatively comfortable temperature, carries away heat much faster than if the heat is radiated into stationary air. But with all the reasonableness of the behavior of these mammals, they are either unable or too lazy to eliminate the draft, even if for this you need to move a couple of branches or pebbles. Scientists who have studied the behavior of bats in Belovezhskaya Pushcha have found that bats would prefer to endure a terrible crush in a hollow, which is clearly close to the entire population, than to move to a much larger hollow nearby with a small draft.
16. The main species of bats feed on insects, moreover insects harmful to crops. In the 1960s and 1970s, scientists even believed that bats had a decisive influence on the populations of some pests. However, later observations showed that the influence of bats can hardly be called even regulatory. With a significant increase in the population of harmful insects in the observed area, the population of bats simply does not have time to increase enough to cope with the influx of pests. The site becomes more attractive to birds, which destroy insects. Nevertheless, there is still a benefit from bats - one individual eats several tens of thousands of mosquitoes per season.
