Life habits of bats

We know what do bats like to eat and how they use their senses to get these.

 

Let us find out,

 

How bats eat and drink :

Microbats capture the insect prey and put them in their tail membranes, about which you read when we learnt about their wings. This connects their tail and the hind legs and acts as a pouch. They can use this pouch as a scoop and put it into their mouth. If you ever find them shaking abruptly while flying, this is what they are doing!

photo 14.1

In the picture ( b ) you can see how it scoops an insect using its tail – membrane as a spoon

Picture ( c )  shows you how it can bring an insect caught at the end of the wings directly to the mouth.

photo 14.2

The picture above shows you how it drinks water by swooping down to the surfaces of ponds and licking it in small licks at a time.

photo 14.3

There are also fish – eating bats, shown on the right, who use echo-location to find them. They fly very low over the ponds and look for ripples. This tells them that there is something moving beneath them. They dive and capture the fish with their feet. They have big feet, long toes and sharp toe nails which is ideal for their needs.

While we are talking of fish eating bats, we should get to know that they are the kind of bats who  echo locate best.

Bats do not like the winter season as most of the insects are not available.

Let us see what do they do during winters :

click:

Bats during winters : Hibernation

Bats during winters : Migration