WINGED WONDERS – BATS
Welcome to October, also known as bat appreciation month. We have nine species of bats in Alberta, and every single one of them is an insectivore. This means that they eat insects, which is a huge plus if you are a farmer who does not like pest insects or if you are one of the many people who loathe our humble mosquitos. Some of our Alberta bats, like the endangered Little Brown Myotis, can eat up to an estimated 2500-5000 insects in one night! But I am not here to talk about the incredible benefits to having bats around, instead I want to appreciate the one ability that bats can do that no other mammal has managed to figure out, how to fly.
As Halloween approaches, you may come across several versions of Batman wandering around the neighbourhood. This raises the question of could our human bodies be adapted for true flight like a bat man? The first thing we would need to do is lighten up our bones and make them a lot thinner so there is less weight to carry. Flapping wings to fly requires a ton of energy, bat heart rates can soar to 1100 beats/minute when in flight. As it is a bat has to eat its own weight in insects in one night to keep up with the calories required to fly. The human equivalent would be eating 544 cheeseburgers in a night.
Bats are in the family Chiroptera, which translates to hand-wing. Now if you wanted to have a wing like a bat’s you would need to put your arms out at your sides, point your forearms up and then spread out your fingers as wide as you could. But before you do this you also have to grow your fingers to a length of 2 meters. In between these fingers is a thin membrane of skin, airtight so you are more acro-bat-ic than a bird for quick turns. To complete your wings, you need to attach them to your ankles and grow a tail to also attach this wing membrane to. This little tail section is very important for hunting because if your wings are busy flying how do you grab insects? Instead of their hands bats will curl up this tail section to scoop insects out of the air and reach down with their mouths to quickly eat it. This brings a new meaning to an inflight meal.
The chances of humans achieving true flight like a bat seems about as far stretched as those bat fingers. Perhaps instead we should turn our attention to finding ways to promote healthy bat habitats so we can continue to admire these threatened flying mammals. We can put up bathouses, protect old growth trees, use less insecticides, promote dark skies and learn more about these fascinating little neighbours. If you would like to learn more about Alberta bats or find bat activities for Halloween, please check out the Alberta Community Bat program at www.albertabats.ca/ . This program is doing amazing work to give bat advocacy a new ‘lift’.
