Go to
www.batcon.org
Here is what they say about how much a bat eats:
"What do bats eat?"
"There are nearly 1,000 different species of bats in the world, living on every
continent except Antarctica. Each one has developed special adaptations for how it
lives and what it eats. For example, 70% of all the bats in the world eat insects and
many of them use echolocation in order to find food and move around in the dark. Many
small insectivorous bats can eat up to 2,000 mosquito-sized insect in one night.
These bats are able to eat so much because they have high metabolism and expend lots
of energy in flight. Frugivorous bats living in tropical climates have very good
eyesight and sense of smell for finding ripe fruit to eat. In the desert, there are
nectar-feeding bats which have long noses and tongues for harvesting nectar from
flowers, as well as special enzymes for digesting the high-protein pollen that
accumulates on their faces. Carnivorous bats have sharp claws and teeth for catching
small vertebrates such as fish, frogs, birds, or rodents. A few Latin American bats,
the vampires, eat only blood."
There is a whole lot more information to dispell the many ignorant myths surrounding
these magnificent creatures. They are NOT flying vermin, as many people think. If
it weren't for them, many of the fruits and other plants we eat would not exist any
more.
victoria
On 17 Mar 2003 14:44:05 -0800,
(mypet) wrote:
You know the guano thing really had me puzzled when I saw the
suggestion to hang the bat box on the side of a house? I think I want
to put it in an area that I won't have to shovel bat poop.
DH is less than thrilled about my bat research and has been doing some
checking on his own and came up with a post that stated hummingbirds
did away with alot mosquitoes by feeding them to their young. Has
anybody here come across statistics on the number of mosquitoes a bat
would eat in comparison to hummingbirds, swifts, dragonflies, etc.? I
can tell I'm going to have to do a hard sell for him to help me put up
the houses.