Nature Quest: A haven for bats

The teak plantation in Sagardighee area of Tangail's Ghatail upazila had been a safe haven for different species of bats for decades but their number is on decline.

Every day before evening, numerous bats start chirping and flying in the sky together.

"I have been seeing the bats in the forest area since the British era. Their number, however, has been reducing," said Mohammad Shamsuddin, an elderly man of Sagardighee.

Bats find shelter in caves, crevices, tree cavities and buildings. Some species are solitary while other form colonies of more than a million.

The greatest threat to bats is people. Habitat destruction and people's fear of bats makes a lethal combination. An emerging disease called White Nose Syndrome is killing large numbers of hibernating bats in North America.

Bats play an important role in our ecosystem. However, take caution when bats are near as they are also associated with diseases deadly to humans. Rabies, Nipah, Hendra, Ebola and Marburg are all viruses bats can carry.

But do not go hating bats because of this. They are incredibly important pollinators and they also eat mosquitoes. A single little brown bat can eat up to 1,000 mosquitoes in a single hour.

Bats are the only mammals capable of true flight.

With extremely elongated fingers and a membrane stretched between, bat's wing anatomically resembles the human hand. Almost 1,000 bat species can be found worldwide and they make up a quarter of all mammal species on earth, according to experts.

About 70 percent bats consume insects, making them a natural pest controller. There are also fruit-eating bats; nectar-eating bats; carnivorous bats that prey on small mammals, birds, lizards and frogs; fish-eating bats, and perhaps most notorious, the blood-sucking bats of the Americas.

Bats can be found almost anywhere in the world, except the polar regions and extreme deserts.

While some species of bats have populations in the millions, others are smaller in number or are in decline.

Some bats have a highly sophisticated sense of hearing. They emit sounds that bounce off objects in their path, sending echoes back to the bats. From these echoes, the bats can determine the size of objects, how far away they are, how fast they are travelling and even their texture, all in split second.

Bats are divided into two suborders: Megachiroptera, meaning large bat, and Microchiroptera, meaning small bat. The large bats have a six-foot wingspan. The smallest bats are no more than an inch long.

Bats live longer than most other mammals of their size. The longest living known specimen in the wild was 30 years old.