Halloween myths that harm biodiversity: Bats

In the Neotropics, (micro)bats are a very diverse group & play many different important roles in our lives. Unlike the popular misconception that bats are blood-loving evil creatures, they’re just mammals that are mostly eating insects, nectar, fruits, other bats, lizards, amphibians, small mammals, fish, &, well, I cannot lie, a few species suck blood (but they’re not into humans!). Let me try to change your mind here and make you appreciate the amazing creatures that bats are.

The economic value of bats

Some studies have estimated the economic value of bats. For example, for North America, the loss of bats could lead to a $3.7 billion per year loss in agriculture. Having them around help control agricultural pests and they are also amazing pollinators. A study in Texas estimated bat value as pest control for cotton production in around $741,000. Can you imagine how much more expensive and scarce food and other plant resources we use (like cotton) would be without wild pollinators?

Bats are pretty cheap plague control and pollinators, so we benefit a lot from having them around. Thanks to bats, tequila is still accessible! Not to say the awesome work they do for forest regeneration. And what about rabies? You’re more likely to get rabies from your neighbor than from a bat.

Besides biological pest control, pollination and seed dispersal, we also benefit from bats through other activities like guano mining, medicine, bat-watching tourism, education and research.

Some mind-boggling bat-facts

Microbats use echolocation to locate their food and sense their surroundings. (I make the distinction because Megabats -Old World fruit bats including flying foxes- do not echolocate). This is also what dolphins use & what we have imitated to use with radars & sonars. This can be compared to echo: say something, it bounces off an object & sound waves come back to you. But bats can even detect textures, direction, & sizes.

Some scientists study the recordings of bat sounds under different activities & stressors, & group them by their different characteristics (e.g. frequencies & call durations). The bat squeaking we hear are not just random sounds “to see”, but they seem to “discuss” 4 main topics: food, sleeping positions, unwanted male sexual advances, & personal space issues. Yes, they need their space too. They even have different tones! They can distinguish between voices, gender, & who’s talking to who. Bat chat is more similar to our own social communication that we could have imagined!

Bats perform oral sex

Yes, you read that right.

As far as I’m concerned this has only been observed in a couple of Megabat species. In some flying foxes (the huge bats that look like humans in disguise), fellatio (blow jobs) have been reported during copulation. While the male is penetrating the female, she bends down and licks away, presumably to make sex last longer. In a different species, males have been observed to first lick themselves (self-blow jobs), then lick the females’ vaginal opening (cunnilingus), then penetration goes on for like a minute, and then post-coital cunnilingus once more. It’s hypothesized that this could be for sex to last longer but also that saliva could have some protective agents against venereal diseases.

Go ahead, I know you want to YouTube that 😉

So you see, bats and humans have a bit more in common than we previously thought. Bats are not out to eat you or suck your blood, and we do not need to kill them. They don’t need us, but we definitely need them! They deserve their space and ecosystem health.

References

1. Prat et al. 2016. Everyday Bat Vocalizations Contain Information about Emitter, Addressee, Context, and Behavior.  Scientific Reports (Nature).
2. Knörnschild, et al. 2012. Bat Echolocation Calls Facilitate Social  Communication. Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
3. Brown. 1976. Vocal Communication in the Pallid Bat Antrozous pallidus. Ethology.
4. Tan, M., et al. 2009. Fellatio by Fruit Bats Prolongs Copulation Time. PlosONE.
5. Maruthupandian, J. & Marimuthu, G. 2013. Cunnilingus Apparently Increases Duration of Copulation in the Indian Flying Fox, Pteropus giganteus. PlosONE.