Created Jan 2011
Updated March 2020
Chiroptrivia 2011
“Life is a beautiful and strange creature that appears at a window, flies swiftly through the banquet and is gone.” The Venerable Bede
and there can be few more strange and wonderful creatures than a bat.So this section is dedicated to the strange and wonderful things which make bat group members laugh, agree with or wonder at. If you have something you’d like to post here, quotations, facts, trivia or whatever email us
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A seagull has been caught on You Tube feeding on bats (Thanks to Gail Armstrong for this)
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It is unusual for British bats to give birth to twins. This year , however, there have been two cases of grounded bats giving birth tothem. Perhaps they were grounded because they were too heavy to fly. 2011-10 Twins1 and 2011-10-twins 2
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Nectar feeding bats such as Glossophaga soricina (Pallas ‘Long Eared Bat) also feed on the pollen which collects on their fur by grooming it off have rough hair which traps pollen. Other bats have smooth fur
These nocturnal bats, can consume up to 150 per cent of their body weight in a single sitting, by hovering at flowers to feed on simple sugars – such as fructose, glucose and sucrose – found in the nectar
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In colonies of Rodriques fruit bats (Pteropus rodricensis) there are special midwife bats that help and encourage expectant mothers into the correct position. The midwife bat then spends some of her time cradling the mother and bearing some of the weight, giving the mother-to-be’s weary wings a little rest
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The bat on this Chinese match box has quite oriental eyes
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The 2010 IgNobel Prize for Biology has been awarded to Gareth Jones and his team at Bristol university for their work on the importance of fellatio in fruit bats
More detail of the prize winning research
One way of protecting bats from turbine collision maybe to paint turbines blades purple rather than white. This is because insects seem to be attracted to the white blades that are usually used according to a report in the Daily Telegraph
Another way may simply be to increase the wind speed at which the turbines begin to move.. This results in a 1% reduction of power produced but reduces mortalities of migrating bats by 41%
This striking bat has just been discovered in Papua New Guinea. Some of the media likened it to Yoda from Star Wars. His yellow ears and nose are certainly unusual
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The beautiful painted bat of Thailand used to be fed to fighting cockerels by villagers who believed it made the birds stronger . They no longer do this as they conserve them because researchers and bat workers come to the village to look for these fabulous creatures
(Thanks to www. batthai.com for giving me a chance to meet these amazing creatures)
2011-7-painted bat for an article on painted bats )
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Painted bats are unusual in that they form a tight family group consisting of mum dad and one baby. If a pair are captured they wait for each other on release
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This has been dubbed the world’s hardest bat because of its habit of biting the heads off live scorpions More
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This picture made it into newspapers all over the world during the Australian flood in 2007
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Apparently if you yawn at a bat, it will yawn back
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This wildlife illustrator has done a really clear series of paintings of bats which capture them beautifully
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Bats heads were once kept in Egyptian dovecotes to keep the doves from leaving
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Fruit bats tongues are covered with papillae to help them grip fruit.
Photo by Roger Jones
Click here for an article on Bats’ tongues 2011-7-bats tongues
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And talking of bat tongues a scanning electron micorscope of a pipistrelle’s tongue taken by Bedford micrographer Steve Gschmeissner
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Brandt’s bats have heart shaped nostrils
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