All Bats Do Not Look Alike

SCIENCE CONCEPT:

Bats are a very diverse mammal group. There are many varieties and species. The animal order, chiroptera, is divided into two main groups of bats: micro-chiroptera (microbats) and mega-chiroptera (megabats).

STUDENT OBJECTIVE:

The student will look at pictures of many different types of bats and attempt to tell the different ones apart. They will do this by looking at the size of the bat, the shape of the noses and ears, and whether or not they have tails.

OVERVIEW:

OVERVIEW: The student will view various bat pictures and describe the differences between 5 distinct bat species.

PREPARATION TIME:

20 minutes.

LESSON TIME:

20-25 minutes.

TEACHER PREP:

Gather many pictures of different bat species, preferably colored.

WORDS TO KNOW:

chiroptera

microbats

megabats

species

echolocation

TEACHER TEXT:

The animal order, chiroptera, is divided into two main groups of bats: micro-chiroptera (microbats) and megachiroptera (megabats). Microbats is the larger bat group consisting of over 700 species that are found in the Americas and throughout Asia, Europe, Africa, and Australia. Bats in this group are smaller in size with complex ears and small eyes that probably only see in black and white. They rely more on echolocation (listening to echoes to find objects) to hunt for their diet of insects, fish, or frogs.

The wing area of microbats is smaller than their body size. These insect eating bats must make up for their small wing size by increasing their number of wing strokes. They raise and lower their wings from 11-18 times per second. These small, fast moving wings enable microbats to change direction quickly and sometimes even hover in flight while hunting. Most microbats do not travel great distances but, instead, hunt in the immediate area for insects.

Megabats is the smaller group of bats consisting of approximately 170 different species that live in the tropical areas of Africa, Asia, and Australia. The bats in this group are larger bats with simple ears and large, dog-like eyes. They are often called flying foxes because of their foxlike faces or fruit bats because of their diet. Contrary to what many people think about bats (they are all blind and use echolocation), these bats use their keen vision and sense of smell to navigate and locate nectar, pollen, and fruit to eat. Most have no echolocation ability.

The wing area of these fruit eating megabats is larger than their body size. Wings often reach spans of 2 meters with wing beats of as few as 7 per second. Due to the air resistance on its large wings, megabats appear to be slow and ponderous in flight. But with long narrow wings, it is not unusual for megabats to travel 50-80 km in one night to feed.

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Last modified: Sat Aug 23 14:04:12 PDT 1997