Nocturnal winged wonders

By Zoey McGee  |  Manor Ink

In honor of the spooky season, this month’s animal column is about the fantastic life of the flying creature that we often associate with Halloween. That is the bat.

While the bat I write about isn’t the “vampire bat” that you would associate with this frightening and fun holiday, I promise you the little brown bat, the most common bat in our area, is also very interesting.

The little brown bat is aptly named – it’s little and brown. However, its color can vary from golden brown to reddish brown. On average, these bats weigh less than half an ounce. Little brown bats have black wings that span from eight to eleven inches, with females typically being more prominent. The bat’s wing has a very similar structure to the human arm and hand.

The bats’ wings have many uses besides just allowing them to fly. Wings also serve as a raincoat, protecting the creature in bad weather; a baby blanket, to keep baby bats warm and protected; an eye shade, blocking the sun from their eyes while sleeping during the day; and a fan, as they can flap their wings to keep cool.

The little brown bat is an insect-hunting machine. The bat has a diet of a wide variety of insects, including mosquitoes, caddisflies, moths, beetles and spiders, and it eats the same as about half of its body weight each night. To locate its meal, the bat uses a system called “echolocation.” It emits a high-frequency sound that bounces off the objects in its environment, creating an echo that returns to them. The bat can determine the size of its prey based on these sounds and locate it.

Found often throughout the northern United States, the little brown bat lives in colonies of hundreds and thousands of individuals. These bats congregate at nesting sites called roosts. There are various roosts for different purposes, including day and night roosts and their “hibernacula” roosts for hibernating in winter. It has been found that some bats tend to follow humans and go wherever people go because the various structures we build serve as a worthy habitat for them.

Mating is random for bats. Female bats give birth to a single bat pup at a time. These pups are able to fly and live on their own within a month. After that, the little brown bat will live out its six- to seven-year life.