Yesterday was Bat Appreciation Day, a day to celebrate the world's bat species. Bats are one of the most numerous animals in the world, there is estimated to be 1,200 bat species in the world today. There could be even many more bat species throughout the world that we don't know about, especially in places like tropical rainforests that haven't been fully explored.
We are still discovering new bat species to this day. For example, scientists found two new species of bats last April in Kenya, which shows that we are still finding bat species in the modern world.
While we might not know if and how many more species of bats remain unidentified in the world today, there is many things that we do know about bats. In this list, we are going to look at five things that we do know about bats - let's look at the top five amazing facts about bats!
#5 Not All Bats Are Blood Suckers
Bats are always thought of being bloodsuckers, but not all bats are bloodsuckers, though, there is a type of bat that is a bloodsucker - these types of bats are called vampire bats.
The diet of vampire bats solely consists of blood, they are the only animal in the world that feeds entirely on the blood of other animals. There are other types of bats who don't feast on blood though, these other bats are known as Megabats.
Megabats, or fruit bats, as they are otherwise known, mainly eat fruit.
#4 Bats Can Live A Long Time
Bats are surprisingly resilient and long-lasting animals, as they can live for a long time in the wild. It is estimated that some bat species can live as long as 20 to 30 years in the wild.
The longest living bat that we know of lived even longer than 20 to 30 years, the longest living bat on record lived for an impressive 41 years.
Bats live so long that they have been found to live much longer than mammals that are a similar size to bats. Researchers found that bats can live up to four times longer than other mammals which are about the same size as bats, which shows that these little animals are resilient.
#3 Bats Are Found Almost Everywhere
Many animal species are only found in certain areas of the world. For example, koalas are only found in Australia and giraffes are only found in Africa.
But bats are different. Bats aren't just restricted to just one country or one continent, bats are found almost everywhere in the world, from Europe to Asia, from the Americas to Africa and Australia, bats are found in all of these places - it would be quicker to list the places bats aren't found.
The only places that bats aren't found in the world are places like Greenland, Northern Russia, Northern Canada and so on, bats are found most everywhere else on the planet apart from the most Northern areas of the planet. This makes bats one of the most successful animals today.
#2 All Bat Species In The UK Are Protected
The good thing about bats in the UK is that all bat species in the UK are protected.
Bats are protected in many ways in the UK. It is illegal to kill bats or disturb or ruin their nesting sites in the UK. It is also illegal to capture bats or injure them. And, it is also illegal to transport bats, this includes both live and dead bats. Therefore, bats are probably the most protected wild animal in the UK, which is helpful, as there are several species of bat endangered in the UK today.
There are a total of 18 different bat species in the UK.
#1 Bats Were Once Seen As Witches Familiars
Today, bats are famously associated with Halloween. And, there could be a good reason for that - as bats were once seen as witches familiars. It was common for people in medieval Europe to believe that animals like witches or bats were witches familiars.
A witches familiar was an entity believed to have been the assistant of a witch. It was believe believed by medieval people that animals like bats assisted witches with their magic.
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