Land Mammals, features and articles | Educational Science

Jun 4, 2008

Bats Eat Dirt to Stay Healthy

The strange act of eating dirt — known as geophagy — is actually common in the animal kingdom. Not only do our closest living relatives the chimpanzees do it — in order to help fight malaria — but so occasionally do humans all over the world. Researchers suspect geophagy could...

Jun 7, 2009

Bats Recognize Individual Voices

Bats hunt in groups in the dark using a form of sonar called echolocation to find snatch bugs out of the air. Scientists have not known how bats recognize their buddies, in order to stay together, and also avoid creating interference between their echolocation calls. The screech of a bat...

Jul 7, 2009

Purpose of Bat's Weird Nose Explained

Scientists may have solved the mystery of a bat with an extremely large nose, according to a new study. The oversized feature could help the bat sharpen its sonar. The Bourret's horseshoe bat, or Rhinolophus paradoxolophus, was discovered 58 years ago in Southeast Asia and named for its strange facial...

Jul 21, 2009

Radar Could Save Bats from Wind Turbines

Bats use sonar to navigate and hunt. Many have been killed by wind turbines, however, which their sonar doesn't seem to recognize as a danger. Surprisingly, radar signals could help keep bats away from wind turbines, scientists have now discovered. Although wind power promises to be a clean source of...

Oct 30, 2009

Surprising Sex Behavior Found in Bats

When they do their thing, female Chinese fruit bats add oral sex to get the males to prolong the act, scientists now find, suggesting the behavior confers evolutionary benefits. Oral sex, or fellatio, is often used in human foreplay, the researchers noted, but rarely seen in other animals. As such,...

Dec 14, 2009

Sticky Science: Why Some Bats Sleep Head-Up

A tiny bat that hangs out in Madagascar is an odd sleeper: Unlike other bats that hang upside-down, this one roosts head-up, and now scientists know why. The sucker-footed bat, as it is known, likely sticks to surfaces with a sweat-like substance and would easily become unlatched if hanging upside...

Aug 5, 2010

Bat Rabies Hops Species More Than Expected

Bats and rabies are closely linked in the public imagination. Now, a new study finds that the spread of the disease between bat species depends heavily on evolutionary ties. Rabies, a viral infection that causes brain inflammation and death, can easily pass between animals and humans. It's not the only...

Nov 8, 2010

Rare Bat Found in Indonesian Forest Fragment

A rare bat has been found in a tiny fragment of rainforest on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Conservationists say the discovery shows that even small remnants of forest are worth protecting. Conservationists from the UK discovered the Ridley's leaf-nosed bat in a 740-acre (300-hectare) fragment of forest during a...

Mar 3, 2011

What Are Bats' Favorite Foods? The Truth Lies in the Poop

Want to know what bats eat? Just remember — what goes in must come out. That's the principle used by researchers from the University of Bristol in the U.K. and the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario, Canada. The scientists wanted to know which insects top the list of bats' favorite food....

May 3, 2011

Weather Delay: Wet Fur Keeps Bats Grounded

Rain can be a bummer when it comes to travel plans, but for bats, rain also can be costly. When their fur gets wet, they expend twice the energy during flight, one reason they avoid leaving their nests to find food during rainstorms. The bats are not protected by feathers...

May 5, 2011

Why Bats Hate Rain

Bats hate rain. They tend to stay out of it. Why? First off, there's evidence that raindrops refract the sound waves bats emit and receive, confounding their ability to navigate by echolocation. Now, new research detailed in the latest issue of the journal Biology Letters has found another reason for...

Jul 28, 2011

Holy Talking Plant! Flower Communicates with Bats

Just as some flowers use bright colors to attract insect pollinators, other plants may use sound to lure in nectar-eating bats. One rain-forest vine has a dish-shaped leaf located above a cluster of flowers that appears to help bats find them (and the plant's tasty nectar) by reflecting back the...

Aug 3, 2011

Flying Mammals: Gallery of Spooky Bats

Upside-Down Rooster (Image credit: Daniel Riskin.)Researchers have discovered why a species of sucker-footed bat that lives in Madagascar roosts head-up. The bat uses wet adhesion rather than suction to cling to leaf surfaces. This clinging mechanism will only keep the bat secure when head-up. Hanging Out (Image credit: Nancy Heaslip,...

Aug 3, 2011

Vampire Bats 'See' Blood with Heat-Sensing Organs

The vampire bat wants to suck your blood, but how does he find it? New research shows that the bat uses specialized sensors near its nose that are extremely sensitive to heat. What the vampire bat has done is through some specialized genetic machinery, it has changed the structure of...

Sep 29, 2011

Superfast Muscles Help Bats Make High-Pitched Buzz

The high-pitched calls produced by insect-feeding bats owe their origins to a set of superfast muscles in the bat's larynx, making this species the first mammal known to sport such superfast muscles, previously only seen in certain snakes and fishes. The buzz that is powered by these superfast muscles is...