About Bats

Bats are furred, warm-blooded mammals with body lengths of 3 to 6 inches and wingspans ranging from 8 to 16 inches. The bones in a bat’s wing are similar to those in human arms and hands. The fingers are extended and connected by leathery, elastic skin that grows from the sides of a bat’s body. Their thumbs are free from the wing membrane and have claws for grasping.

Bats have good eyesight and rely on vision for long-distance orientation. For short-distance navigation and catching food at night, they use echolocation. This sonar system helps bats, like dolphins, locate targets and background objects from the echoes of ultrasonic sounds. These ultrasonic sounds are given slowly when a bat is foraging and quicken as the bat pursues and captures an insect. Detection, pursuit and capture of an insect take about 1 second.

Bats are mostly nocturnal and almost always feed "on the wing." They use their wings, the skin around their tails and their mouths to catch insects in flight. Bats are the only major predators of night-flying insects, making them beneficial to man in several ways. They consume many agricultural pests such as cutworm and corn borer moths, potato beetles and grasshoppers. Mosquitoes and similar "people" pests are eliminated much more efficiently by bats than by birds or expensive bug zappers.

source: DEP