A.
True or False?
1. Bats
swoop down and become caught in people’s hair.
2. Bats
are the only kind of mammals that can fly.
3. Bats
are flying mice.
4. Bats
are blind.
5. Most
bats are dirty and carry rabies.
6. If
you see a bat on the ground during the day, it might be sick.
7. There
really are bats that feed on blood.
8. Bats
produce several litters a year, just like mice.
9. Bats
are ugly animals.
10. A
single bat can catch 600 mosquitoes in just one hour.
B. Bats around the world eat which of the
following things (select all correct
answers):
Fruit
Nectar
Insects
Fish
Blood
C. The biggest bat in the world has a wingspan
of what size:
1
foot
3
feet
6
feet
50
feet
D. The smallest bat in the world is the size of
what animal:
Ant
Mouse
Guinea
pig
Bumblebee
E. Worldwide there are about ____ different
species of bats:
10
100
500
1,000
F. In the United States there are about ____
kinds of bats:
5
10
40
100
G. Bats are what kind of animals:
Birds
Reptiles
Amphibians
Mammals
H. Most bats produce ____ baby(ies) a year
10
5
1
25
I. Bats are found in which of the following
places (select all correct answers)
Tree
holes
Caves
Attics
Plant
leaves
Bridges
Mines
Tree
bark
Rock
crevices
J. Bats live in which of the following kinds of
areas (select all correct answers)
Mountains
Deserts
Rain
forests
Cities
Prairies
Wetlands
Farmland
Polar
regions
K. Bats are important to the environment because
they: (select all correct answers)
Pollinate
flowers
Distribute
plant seeds
Eat
insects
Answers:
A
1.
False – Insects often hover around people, and a hungry bat may seem to swoop
down in hot pursuit of a pesky mosquito.
Their sonar ability is sophisticated enough to find such an insect in
complete darkness. They certainly are
not going to blunder into a person’s hair.
2. True – Mammals such as flying squirrels
are actually gliders. Bats are the only
mammals capable of sustained flight.
There is a great diversity of flight patterns among the nearly 1,000
kinds of bats. Some can hover like
hummingbirds while feeding on nectar, and a few diurnal flying foxes are able
to soar on thermals just like eagles.
3. False – While bats may resemble mice with
wings, they are not closely related to rodents.
Both bats and mice are mammals, but studies indicate that bats are more
closely related to primates (and humans) than to rodents. Flying fox bats have a brain organization
very similar to ours.
4. False – All bats have vision and see
well. Insectivorous bats often have
small eyes and depend primarily on their echolocation (sonar) to navigate and
find food. Fruit bats, especially flying
foxes, have excellent vision and a good sense of smell, which they use to find
ripe fruit. Flying fox bats, who have
large eyes, are not able to echolocate.
Sonar is not needed to find stationary food.
5. False – Bats are very clean and groom
themselves several times a day just like cats.
The issue of bats and rabies is greatly exaggerated. Bats can contract rabies just like all
mammals, but they are not asymptomatic carriers of rabies, and they quickly die
from the disease. The incidence of
rabies in bats is less than half of one percent. In more than 40 years of record keeping in
the U.S., only 20 people are believed to have died from contact with bats. People have little to fear from bats if they never
try to handle them. An important message
for children, especially when they come to like bats, is that bats are wild
animals that should never be touched.
Any bat or wild animal that can be approached is more likely than others
to be sick.
6. True – see information in no. 5.
7. True – Vampire bats feed on blood from
livestock. The bat bites through the host
animal’s skin and laps up the blood.
Vampire bats comprise a very small portion of the world’s bats.
8. False – Bats usually produce only pup per
year. This is one factor that makes bats
exceptionally vulnerable to extinction.
9. False – Various species of bats can look
vastly different from each other, but all of them are beautiful in their own
way, just like people! Besides, can you
really call this bat ugly?
10. True – Bats help control insect populations that feed
on crops that are important to people and keep farmers from having to use so
many pesticides.
B. All
are correct.
C. Nearly
6 feet, a flying fox bat from Java
D. Bumblebee,
the bumblebee bat from Thailand
E. 1,000
F. 40
G. Mammals
H. 1
I. All
are correct.
J. Bats
live in all of these areas except polar regions.
K. All are correct.
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