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Introduction to Bats - Forestry Natural Resources and Wildlife - Lecture Slides, Slides of Wildlife Ecology

These are the lecture slides of Forestry Natural Resources and Wildlife. Key important points are: Introduction to Bats, Blood Sucking, Flying Rats, Bats Are Blind, Bats Won’T Fly, Only Way Rodents, Class Mammalia, Order Chiroptera, Suborder Microchiroptera, Bat Stats

Typology: Slides

2012/2013

Uploaded on 01/27/2013

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An Introduction to
Bats
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Download Introduction to Bats - Forestry Natural Resources and Wildlife - Lecture Slides and more Slides Wildlife Ecology in PDF only on Docsity!

An Introduction to

Bats

BATS

Creepy, blind, blood-sucking RODENTS of the night….right?

Actually…..

  • Those are all just BAT MYTHS
  • Bats won’t fly into your hair or attack you
  • They aren’t blind at all
  • And they aren’t even rodents……

Nobody likes me….

The Only Way

Rodents Can Fly

So, What ARE Bats???

  • Class Mammalia
  • Order Chiroptera (“hand-wing”)
    • Suborder Megachiroptera- flying foxes
      • 1 Family, ~166 species
    • Suborder Microchiroptera- micro bats
      • 16 Families, ~759 species

Bat Stats

  • 4,200 species of mammals
    • ~1,000 species of bats
  • Of these, 88% are tropical

What do Bats Eat?

  • FRUIT- “frugivory”
  • FLOWERS- nectar or pollen
  • CARNIVORES- birds, reptiles, amphibians
  • FISH- highly specialized carnivores
  • BLOOD- “sangrivory”
  • INSECTS- aerial or foliage gleaners

How do Bats Fly?

  • Bats are the only mammals capable of TRUE powered flight

What is Echolocation?

  • Microbats use ECHOLOCATION for navigation and prey capture:

Animation from www.batcon.org.

More About Echolocation

  • 1700’s: Lazarro Spallanzani first proposed bats could “see” with their ears
  • 1930’s: Donald R. Griffin of Harvard coined term “echolocation”
  • Not all bats echolocate- just Microchioptera
  • Most echolocation calls are between 9 to 200+kHz
  • Humans can only hear up to 20 kHz
  • Bat detectors allow us to hear bat calls
  • Can ID bat species by their echolocation calls

Economic Importance of Bats in Agriculture

  • The story of Mexican free-tailed bats in Central Texas - Bracken Cave: ~20 million Mexican free-tailed bats (single largest aggregation of mammals in the world) - Central Texas caves, including Bracken Cave, are summer maternity roosts for ~ 100 million Mexican free-tailed bats - It is estimated that these bats eat about 2 million lbs of insects every night

Photo from www.batcrew.com

Tadarida brasiliensis

Mexican Free-tailed

bat

Photo From BCI: www.batcon.org Docsity.com

The Problem

Helicoverpa zea

Corn Earworm

“Bats Aloft” Partners

  • Dr. Gary F. McCracken, University of Tennessee
  • Dr. Wayne Wolfe and Dr. John Westbrook of USDA Research Station in College Station, TX
  • U.S. Weather Service
  • Bat Conservation International