Land Mammals, features and articles | Educational Science

May 6, 2013

Tongue Erections Help Bats Sop Up Nectar

Bats use erectile tissue to drink. But don't worry — the tissue is on their tongues. Nectar-eating bats lap up the sweet liquid by engorging their tongues with blood, which, in turn, makes hairlike projections on the tongue stand at attention, new research finds. Together, the erect hairs, called papillae,...

Jun 13, 2013

Why I Love ... Bats, the Only True Mammalian Fliers

David Murphree is an architect, artist and designer based in Fayetteville, Arkansas. He contributed this thought piece, part of the “Why I Love . . . series, to LiveScience’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Chiroptera. Bats. The only true mammalian fliers. Our small Microchiroptera cousins have been flying the Earth's...

Jul 8, 2013

Kinky! Hawkmoths Rub Genitals to Ward Off Bats

With perhaps the kinkiest alarm system in the animal kingdom, hawkmoths rub their genitals to create ultrasound bursts that might drive away bats, researchers say. Moths, unlike their butterfly relatives, fly mostly during the night. This means they often share the skies with bats, which are similarly nocturnal. Bats and...

Oct 15, 2013

Gallery: Leaf-Living Bats

Roosting Bats (Image credit: © Manuel Sánchez)Spix's disc-winged bats roost in an unfurling leaf in the rainforest of Costa Rica. Bat Teeth (Image credit: © Sébastien Puechmaille)Spix's disc-winged bats form groups of five or six, staying together for years despite their itinerate lifestyles. Spix's Disc-Winged Bat (Image credit: © Sébastien...

Oct 15, 2013

Speak Up! Costa Rican Bats Use Leaves as Hearing Aids

Bats in Costa Rica have evolved a neat trick to help them hear their roost-mates flying above: They use leaves to funnel sound in a natural version of an old-timey ear horn. The Spix's disc-winged bat (Thyroptera tricolor), named for suction-cuplike discs on its wings and feet, is found in...

Oct 29, 2013

Heading Towards a Halloween Without Bats? (Op-Ed)

Jon Hoekstra is chief scientist for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). This article is adapted from one that first appeared on Hoekstra's WWF blog, Science Driven. He contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. What would Halloween be like without bats? Maybe a little less scary. Probably...

Oct 31, 2013

Flying Foxes (Actually Bats) on Remote Island Studied for First Time

Flying foxes? Not really foxes. They're actually bats (and one of those animals with a pretty misleading name). But though their moniker may not be accurate, they are fascinating creatures that scientists know fairly little about. Now, a new study reveals some limited details about one isolated species found on...

Dec 2, 2013

Why Killing Vampire Bats Doesn't Stop Rabies

Controlling the population of vampire bats by using poison or even explosives has been a decades-old way of trying to curb the spread of rabies in Latin America, but new research suggests culling these bat colonies does little to stem the deadly virus. Scientists from the University of Michigan, in...

Dec 30, 2013

Animal Sex: How Bats Do It

More than 1,200 species of bats exist today, representing about 20 percent of all mammal species in the world. And given they are the only mammals able to fly, bats have some unique mating behaviors not seen in other mammals. To start, the location and timing of mating varies greatly...

Jun 24, 2014

Blood-Only Diet Numbed Vampire Bat's Taste Buds

Vampire bats apparently don't have much use for a delicate palate. A new study finds these blood feeders can hardly detect bitter tastes. Researchers already knew that vampire bats wouldn't make great foodies. They can't taste sweet or umami, the sort of savory flavor that makes broths and meats taste...

Jul 22, 2014

Bats Use Polarized Light As a Nighttime Compass

Polarized light is something people wear sunglasses to avoid, but for bats, it's actually useful, and can help them find their way. The greater mouse-eared bat (Myotis myotis) is the first mammal known to navigate using polarized light — light waves that are parallel to each other and vibrate in...

Nov 6, 2014

Bats Use Signal Jamming to Ward Off Competitors

Just like Navy engineers who jam the sonar of enemy ships, bats can jam the signals of other bats to ward off competition for food, a new study finds. Bats hunt by echolocation, which means they emit high-pitched sounds and listen to the echoes that bounce off their prey. But...

Jan 13, 2015

Can 'Good' Bacteria Save Bats From Killer Fungus?

This article was originally published on The Conversation. The publication contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. It’s been roughly eight years since white-nose syndrome (WNS) was first documented decimating bat populations in upstate New York. The disease is caused by the fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans which...

May 28, 2015

Photos: 'Dementor' Wasps, Fanged Bats & Other Bizarre Species of the Greater Mekong

In 2014, 139 new species of plants and animals were discovered in parts of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, an area collectively known as the Greater Mekong region. This list of new species was recently published by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), which seeks to preserve the Greater Mekong...

May 28, 2015

'Dementor' Wasps and Long-Fanged Bats! Trove of New Species Found

A paralysis-inducing wasp, a color-changing toad and a bat with eerily long teeth — what do all of these curious critters have in common? Sure, they all seem a tad unusual, but more importantly, all of them were unknown to scientists until recently. These three critters are among 139 new...