Bats are the only mammal known for its extraordinary flight stunts with a small body structure. Doing many rounds of darting and rolling over itself, this tiny winged animal can come to rest, in its normal positions in mere seconds.
On a hand where their feature of hanging off upside-down creates a fascination in our minds, their inability to walk and stay erect makes the fact even more puzzled for us. Let us focus a bit more on their incapability of standing through this blog.
Morphology as the cause.
Scientifically known as Chiroptera, bats have the thickest wings, compared to the inclusive body mass of all birds. These mammals have their front limbs altered for flying, with their shoulder region fine-muscled and enlarged, so that they can power up the wings. However, because of their small and slim hips and legs section, they are unable to support the weight of their body and are incapable of standing.
The scientific aspect.
Scientists from different parts of the world have now found their answer to this prospect. As per several studies, Bats tend to convert their larger wings into flight advantage, using an extra burden to produce the required force to perform their inimitable stunts. While taking on a flight, they pull out a wing closer to their body leaving others fully stretched.
However, due to their tiny and underdeveloped hind legs, these mammals can not attain the speed to run up or stand overcoming their bodyweight. In contrast, to other birds, because of their weak lower limbs, bats can not takeoff and stand straight over the ground.
The reason at a glance.
Since the lower limbs of bats are modified to 180º, their knees glue up into the atmosphere when they initiating a walk on the ground. Similar to human beings, bats’ lower limbs are composed of two main bones i.e, the lower section is made up of the tibia whereas the fibula in the remaining region is fused with the tibia. Due to this typical design, bats can’t have a firm stand action.
Moreover, the bats are efficient in limping upside down, with their feet lying on the surface making up the grip. This grip is so strong that they can remain in the same posture even while snoozing. During this upside pose, their self-bodyweight leads their feet to stick constricted. Further, to loosen up this posture, bats have to pull out the self-locking contrivance they made using claws and muscles. Isn’t this tendency of theirs the coolest one?
Some interesting facts about bats.
Even if they can’t stand, bats have some interesting facts. Let us learn about them as follows:
- Their waste droppings to useful one- The end products or the waste droppings of a bat is known as guano and is one of the ironic fertilizers.
- Having a longer life- As revealed by many scientific studies, Bats can survive for more than 30 years with their flight speed ranging from 60-65 miles per hour.
- Heavy dosage- The bats are capable of eating approximately up to 1,300 mosquitoes in an hour.
- The best vision- Apart from their unique maneuvers, bats are well-efficient in finding their supper even in total darkness.
- Has a large variety of species- Found in nearly all types of habitats except extreme desert and polar regions, they have more than 1400 species all over the globe.
- Best pollinators– Since, many species of bats depend upon fruits and other plants for their food, they act as the best pollinators especially for bananas, figs, cacao, nuts, and agave, etc.
- The only flying mammal– Even though Earth is rich in fauna comprising of air, water, and land animals including reptiles and mammals. Bat is the only flying mammal existing on Earth.
Nice content with amazing facts ✔️