Sometimes You’ve Just Got to Wing It!

Bats can be found on nearly every part of the earth except in extreme deserts and polar regions.  There are over 1400 species of bats worldwide.  Canada and the U. S. are home to about 45 species of bats.

Bats are the only flying mammals. A bat’s wing resembles a modified human hand. Imagine the skin between your fingers is much larger, thinner and stretched.  The bat’s flexible skin membrane extending between each long finger bone and their many movable joints make bats very agile fliers.  Bats may be small, but they are very fast little creatures. Depending on the species, some bats can reach speeds over 100 mph.

Bats are the most significant predators of night-flying insects.  Each night, bats can eat their body weight in insects.  Their insect-heavy diet helps farmers protect their crops from pests. Bats are great pollinators.  Fruits like bananas, avocados and mangoes depend on bats for pollination.  They also help spread seeds for nuts, figs and cacao.  Without bats, we wouldn’t have plants like agave or saguaro cactus. 

Bats are largely nocturnal which means they are most active after sundown.  Little brown bats emerge from their dark roosts two to three hours after dusk to feed.  After feeding, they return to their roosts to sleep hanging upside down for the rest of the night and day. 

Bats have small eyes with very sensitive vision.  They can see even in conditions that we might consider pitch black.  They don’t have the sharp and colourful vision that humans have, but they really don’t need that.

As well as flying, bats can climb too.  Their wings have thumb-like digits with sharp claws which enable them to grip onto a textured surface.  If you see a bat moving it might look like it is walking but it is actually climbing.  

In winter bats will hibernate.  They choose places like caves, mines, rock crevices and other structures with the ideal temperature and humidity for hibernation. The place where they hibernate is called a hibernacula. Many species of bats move between winter and summer habitats. 

Bats are only aggressive then they are frightened or provoked.  You should always treat any bat you come in contact with as a wild animal, but they are gentle.  They don’t like the smell of mothballs, eucalyptus, or cinnamon. If there is no food or water, a bat trapped in a house will die within 24 hours.  Even after it is dead, you should not go near the bat or touch it.  Bats are every bit as dangerous as they seem.

Bats are the leading cause of rabies deaths in people in the U.S. If you find a bat in your home, try to capture it and get it tested.  By testing the bat for rabies, you can find out if you need to be vaccinated for rabies.  Anyone who touched or had contact with a rabid bat or its saliva could be at risk of getting rabies.  Rabies is almost always fatal once symptoms begin but rabies can be prevented if treatment is given before symptoms appear. 

Here are the sayings on the bookmark called Advice from a Bat.

• Trust in Your Senses

• Spend Time Just Hanging Around with Friends

• Don’t be afraid of the Dark

• Get a Grip

• Enjoy the Nightlife

• Sometimes You’ve Just Got to Wing it.

• Guano Happens!

These are my comments about each of these sayings. 

• Trust in Your Senses - Our senses have been with us all our life and we tend to trust them.  Sight and hearing allow us to sense things from a distance and taste and touch require contact. 

• Spend Time Just Hanging Around with Friends - Spending time with friends prevents isolation and loneliness. It also gives you a chance to share things with others.  

• Don’t be afraid of the Dark - Be inspired by the strength within you to face the difficult situations with courage. Often these situations help you to learn, to grow and to reach your full potential. 

• Get a Grip - Bats use their claw to grip onto a textured surface so they can hang upside down.  

• Enjoy the Nightlife - Bats enjoy the night time because that’s when they get to eat!

• Sometimes You’ve Just Got to Wing it - To wing it is an idiom that means to do something without proper preparation or time to rehearse.  Writing these posts each day for the daily content challenge can take a long time and if I waited until it was ‘perfect’ none of them would ever get posted. So take action and just do it!

• Guano Happens! - Guano is the excrement of bats and is used as fertilizer. I learned a new word.  Hmm…

Have a great day everyone.  Take action.  Sometimes you’ve just got to wing it!

# living life abundantly  # published author  # travelling tuesdays