As human beings, we are mainly active during the day and largely unaware of what’s happening around us in the animal kingdom at night. Most of the large predators’ activity takes place after dark; lions and leopards have eyesight perfectly suited to their nocturnal habits. However, some of the other nocturnal mammals have eyesight less developed for seeing in the dark yet they still function perfectly well in the pitch black. We fear the creatures that come out at night, as a lady some worry that the small flying creatures will tangle themselves in our hair or whatever it is about the dark that frightens us. There are many negative mythological stories of nocturnal creatures like hyenas, owls, and bats. In today’s blog, I would like to focus our attention on the incredible abilities of bats to do what they do.
The misconception for many years is that bats were associated with witches, and the underworld, and thus used as a scary decoration for houses on Halloween. But the truth is that most bats are as aggressive as a Golden Retriever puppy and they are not blind so they will not make a beeline for your hair. Yes, they may be hosts for a few zoonotic diseases, but they have greater significance than just that.
All over the Earth, except in the North and South pole regions, bats form a dark cloud as they leave their caves or tree branches adding contrast against the hues of desert yellow and rose pink skies signalling dusk. The dark wave separates as they go out in search of insects, nectar, fruits, and seeds.
Fruit bats are the reason that a majority of Londolozi’s trees exist. Most of the tropical forests and Savanna trees in Africa are pollinated by fruit bats. One of their most important roles is that they are pollinators of many of these trees and some plants depend partially, or solely, on bats to pollinate their flowers or spread their seeds. Some products that we benefit from as a result of bats are dates, bananas, the delicious mango you snack on at Londolozi during the coffee stops under a tree and agave from which we get tequila. But for the animals too, many rely on trees like the Sausage Tree (pollinated by the Wahlberg’s Epauletted Fruit Bat) for food and also shelter.
The insect-eating bats are pest controllers. A little brown bat can eat more insects than its own body weight each night, including pests that destroy the crops on which we depend. A cloud of microbats (insectivores) can eat more than 100 000 Kilograms of crop-destroying insects a night. To put this into perspective that is the weight of around 20 elephants. Not only can they help protect our crops from insects, but they also control the number of mosquitoes in an area. Insectivorous bats are fascinating in that they are able to manoeuvre around in pitch black with nocturnal vision that is below par and still manage to catch a significant amount of food in one evening. All done while in flight, hunting on the wing.
So how do they do it? They emit a high-frequency sound and are able to calculate from the echoes that bounce back to them exactly what lies ahead. From this, they can work out how big the insect is, what direction it is flying and how fast. Basically everything that they would need to successfully swoop in and pluck it out of the night sky.
![Dwarf Epauletted Fruit Bat (micropteropus Pussilus) Flying At Ni](https://media.londolozi.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/16094227/AdobeStock_Dwarf-epauletted-fruit-bat-Micropteropus-pussilus-scaled-1598x1089.jpeg)
Here is a Dwarf epauletted fruit bat flying, that is hugely beneficial in the pollination of a number of trees around Londolozi.
Bats are good indicators of healthy biodiversity, their population numbers signal any changes in the ecosystems. Thus, their presence should be rejoiced and not seen as a danger in the night skies.
![Bat On The Wrist Of A Woman's Hand The Egyptian Slit Faced Bat](https://media.londolozi.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/16094252/AdobeStock_Egyptian-slit-faced-bat-Nycteris-thebaica-720x405.jpeg)
This particular specimen was not caught on Londolozi, but this fascinating little Egyptian slit-faced bat is found here and has a fascinating face which allows it to use echolocation in order to fly around in the pitch dark and hunt insects.
In 2016, Kate MacEwan, head of Inkululeko Wildlife Services, visited Londolozi with her husband Bo in order to study the bat populations and diversity at Londolozi. Through this study, it was great to realise just how many bats are around. Over a few evenings with the apparatus set up to catch the bats they were able to identify 10 different species on Londolozi alone. There are probably more species that occur here but these were just the ones identified. Which baffled many of the rangers, mostly because you often hear the bats but seldomly take the time to sit and identify them as they fly overhead. Below is a list of the bats found.
Green House bat Scotophilus verdis
Little Free Tail bat Chaerephon pumilus
Welwitsch’s myotis Myotis welwitschii
Zulu serotine Neoromicia zuluensis
Banana bat Neoromicia nana
Schlieffen’s Twilight bat Nycticeinops schlieffeni
Mauritian tomb bat Taphozous mautitiannus
Egyptian Slit faced bat Nycertis thebaica
Temminck’s myotis Myotis tricolour
With the rarest being the:
Giant Yellow House bat Scotophilus nigrita
A couple of photos to show the methods behind the study.
Thank you Jess – I had no idea of how important they are.
They too have an important place in this ecosystem!
Jess, What an incredible blog! Of course we have seen bats while at Londolozi, but never knew there were so many species and that they all have different benefits. Thanks for a great and understandable education!
Jess bats give me the creeps and I know that they do good work. I never knew that there are so many different types of bats. The little dwarf bats face looks like a mouse’ face, cute but still scarry. Thanks for sharing Jess.
I had no idea you had so many different varieties of bats there. We installed a bath house last year in hopes that we can convince some to move in and help with the mosquito population in our yard. No activity yet, but I’m remaining hopeful. They are such neat creatures.
I really hope the bats use your bat house! It will help so much with your mosquito population! Fingers crossed!
10+ different bats?! Amazing! Truly under-appreciated animals!
I agree, they deserve more appreciation!
Fascinating reading Jess! I didn’t know much about bats, save for they’re really not aggressive, but to learn how they contribute to our planet is quite interesting. I can see why insect eating bats are so important in areas producing crops, reducing the need for chemical products to insure stable outcomes. I had not thought fruit bats actually were good for the trees and earth as a result of their feeding habits. Always great to learn something new.
I’m glad I could help provide an insight into the fruit eating bats purposes!
Thanks JESS for the update on the bats of Londolozi. Bats are truly one of the beneficial mammals of our eco-system.
Thanks, Jess, for this really interesting article on bats and their meaning for the environment.
I really like bats……they are cool, and so so amazing and helpful in our ecosystems…..the very large “flying foxes” in Sydney Australia are something to behold when they emerge every night. The only time that I had a moment of pure squeamishness was when a small bat got into a taxi in Jamaica with us one night through the open sun roof and flew around our heads while we dodged (and maybe screamed a little bit!)….until the poor animal managed to fly out and away from those darn “batty” humans!
Oh, my, I adore bats. Thank you for this article! Bats are the most under appreciated, vital mammal in the world!