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On a visit to Austin, Texas, on an early spring evening, as you cross the Congress Avenue Bridge, you notice a large crowd of spectators gathering and hear a strange humming sound looming in the sky. You look up, only to see 1.5 million bats flying above your head! Do you run for cover? Are all of these people crazy? You think to yourself, "Will they dive down and get stuck in my hair?" or "What if they have rabies?" or "Yuck, they look like flying mice!"
Noticing your look of horror, a native of Austin assures you that bats are actually gentle and smart mammals—that's right, mammals. In fact, bats have much more in common with humans than with birds. Although bats are the only mammals that can really fly, they have fur or hair, are warm-blooded, bear live young, give their babies milk, and have arms, hands, and feet! Like cats, bats are very clean and groom themselves. While bats can get rabies, like all mammals, few ever do. And bats are far more interested in catching insects than flying into people.
Slightly reassured, you still ask, "Why not just get rid of these creatures?" The Austinite reminds you that bats eat tons of insects. A single little brown bat can catch 600 mosquitoes in just one hour. The 20 million Mexican free-tail bats from Bracken Cave, Texas, can eat 250 tons of insects in a night! With bats eating all those insects, fewer chemicals and poisons will have to be used on crops!
In addition to helping control the insect population, many bats spread seeds for new plants and trees. Tropical bats help maintain rain forests, which rely on them to pollinate flowers and spread seeds for countless trees and shrubs. Important agricultural plants, such as bananas, mangoes, cashews, and figs, rely on bats for pollination and seed dispersal.
Bat droppings in caves support whole ecosystems of organisms, including bacteria useful in cleaning up wastes, improving soaps and detergents, and producing antibiotics. The saliva from the vampire bat is being studied to see if a new medicine can someday be found to help people with heart problems.
As you leave the remarkable site, the Austinite warns you that these animals are wild and that you should never touch one. But that shouldn't be a problem. Now you have a new appreciation for bats, but you still wouldn't want to hug one!
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