Bats are fascinating animals – the only true flying mammal. There are over 1,400 species of bats in the world, making up 1/5 of all mammal species.
Bats can be as large as a small dog or as small as a bee. The largest bats are the flying foxes with wingspans of up to 2 metres and a body weights of up to 1.5 kilograms. At the other end of the scale is the bumblebee bat, weighing only 2 grams – the world’s smallest mammal! Did you know that bats are more closely related to humans than they are to mice?
Bats in the UK eat only insects, but bats elsewhere also dine on frogs, fruit, other bats, nectar from flowers, blood, pollen and fish. Some bats use echolocation to navigate and hunt, while others rely on smell and vision to find food.Bats use a variety of landscapes or habitats throughout the year as they feed, roost and travel. They use hunting grounds or foraging habitats to find food and commuting habitats to travel between roosts and foraging habitats. These habitats are vital for bats, which is why the Bat Conservation Trust is working to make more of the landscape bat friendly. For example, we help people create bat friendly gardens, monitor threats to roosts and habitats, present awards for conservation research and contribute to discussions about bats, landscapes and biodiversity.
Bats play a vital role in ecosystems around the world. They are a diverse group of animals accounting for over 20% of the world’s mammals.
In the UK, bats are Indicator species because changes to our bat populations can indicate changes in aspects of biodiversity. For example bats might suffer when there are problems with insect populations (because our bats feed on insects) or when habitats are destroyed or poorly managed (for example, some bats only live in large woodlands).
In addition to their important roles in many environments around the world, bats have also been recognised as hosts of some viruses that can impact human health. These are called ‘zoonoses’ or ‘zoonotic diseases’ (human diseases originating in animals).
The transmission of a virus (or other vector of disease) from wild animals to humans is normally the result of human alterations to the environment. For example with bats, destroying their habitat (by deforestation and intensive building for example) and the intensification of livestock farming, can mean that bats are forced to live more closely to humans, livestock and pets than they would naturally. This closer contact can result in cases of spillover of a virus into human populations either directly or via an intermediate host (e.g livestock).
We remove bats from your ceiling/loft to clear the bad oduor which is caused by their droppings.
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