მთავარი Zipping, zapping, zooming bats

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Each night bats zip,
zap, and zoom through
the darkness as they
hunt. Many people are afraid
of bats—but they shouldn’t be.
Bats actually help us by eating
the bugs that bite humans and
destroy crops. A bat eats half its
weight in insects every day.
Little brown bats can zap 150
mosquitoes in 15 minutes!
With lively text and animated
illustrations, author Ann Earle
and illustrator Henry Cole
illuminate the world of bats—
dispelling common myths and
revealing the vital role of bats in
our environment.


$19.89 CDN





by Ann Earle • illustrated by Henry Cole
Harper Collins

Special thanks to Janet Tyburec at Bat Conservation International for her expert advice.

It is important to remember not to touch a bat. If you see a bat on the ground, it is probably sick or
hurt. Any sick or frightened animal may bite to protect itself.
The illustrations in this book were prepared with acrylic paint and colored pencil
on Arches hot press watercolor paper.
The Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science book series was originated by Dr. Franklyn M. Branley,
Astronomer Emeritus and former Chairman of the American Museum-Hayden Planetarium, and was
formerly co-edited by him and Dr. Roma Gans, Professor Emeritus of Childhood Education, Teachers
College, Columbia University. Text and illustrations for each of the books in the series are checked for
accuracy by an expert in the relevant field. For a complete catalog of Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science
books, write to HarperCollins Children's Books, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022.
Let's Read-and-Find-Out Science is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Publishers.
Zipping, Zapping, Zooming Bats
Text copyright © 1995 by Ann Earle
Illustrations copyright © 1995 by Henry Cole
Pr; inted in the United States of America. For information address HarperCollins Children's Books,
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Earle, Ann.
Zipping, zapping, zooming bats / by Ann Earle ; illustrated by Henry Cole.

cm. — (Let's-read-and-find-out science. Stage 2)

Includes bibliographical references.
Summary: Provides basic facts about the behavior of bats and describes how they benefit the
ISBN 0-06-023479-2. — ISBN 0-06-023480-6 (lib. bdg.). — ISBN 0-06-445133-X (pbk.)
1. Bats—Juvenile literature.

[1. Bats.]

I. Cole, Henry, ill.

II. Title.


III. Series.


Typography by Christine Hoffman
First Edition



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When the sun goes down, bats come out to hunt. You have to l<
quickly to see a bat before it's gone.



Many bats hunt insects. They eat
lots of insects. Each night a bat
chomps half its own weight in bugs.
If you weigh 60 pounds, that#s like
eating 125 peanut-butter-and-jelly
sandwiches every day.
Don't be scared if a bat flies past
your head. It won't get into your hair.
It's probably catching a juicy mosquito.



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Bats are terrific hunters. A little
brown bat can catch 150
mosquitoes in 15 minutes. The
gray bat can gobble 3000 insects
in one night.
Bracken Cave in Texas is home
to 20 million Mexican free-tailed
bats. Together they munch 250
tons of insects every night.
Bats help get rid of insects that
bite people. Bats also zap moths,

beetles, and grasshoppers. These
insects eat farmers' crops, the
od that you and I need.



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Bats are good hunters because they have a special way of using
sound. Bats make high beeping sounds. These sounds are too high
pitched for our ears, but bat ears can hear things ours can#t. The
beeps go out from the bat in waves. The sound waves hit objects


around the bat. When sound waves hit an object, they bounce back.
The bounced sound waves come back to the bat as echoes. The bat
can tell by the echoes what kind'of insect is near, and exactly where
it is. Then the bat can catch it. We call this echolocation.

The echoes that bounce off a tree sound different from the
echoes that bounce off a bug. Bats use echolocation to "hear"
things that are in their way. They can zoom fast through dark forests
and black cave tunnels. If a bat gets into your house, open a door or
window. The bat will echolocate, and "hear" the opening it can use
to fly out.


second finger



fourth finger

fifth finger


tail membrane

Bats are also good hunters because they are expert fliers. Their
wings are different from bird wings. Bat wings have long arm bones
with extra-long finger bones. A thin skin called a membrane
stretches between the bones. The membrane connects the wing
bones to the bat's legs and body. It may also join the tail to the legs.

Bat wings are like webbed hands.
A flying bat can move its wings much
the way you can move your fingers.
This means a bat can quickly change
the shape of its wings. If a bug dodges
away, the bat can zigzag fast and chase
it. A bat can catch a flying insect in its
wing, flip it into its tail membrane, and
then scoop it into its mouth.



Bats have hooked claws on their toes and thumbs. When bats
sleep or clean themselves, they hang upside down by their toe
claws. They use their claws to move around on their roosts, to comb
their fur, and to clean their ears. Bats keep themselves as clean as
cats, using both their tongues and claws.

Because bats fly at night, many people are scared of them.
Sometimes people tell scary stories about vampires that can change
into bats. Dracula and other vampires are not real. Bats fly at night
because thatfs when they can find their favorite meals. Bats are
really very gentle.





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In winter, many bats hibernate. This means the bats sleep deeply.
While bats are hibernating, their breathing slows down and their
heart rate drops from 900 to 20 beats a minute. Hibernating bats
need less energy to stay alive.
Bats get ready for hibernation by stuffing themselves full of food,
especially in the last weeks of warm weather. Their bodies store the
extra food as fat. This fat will be their food through the winter.

Sometimes when people explore caves, they kill bats by accident.
If you went into a cave where bats were hibernating, you would
wake them up. Then they would fly to another part of the cave.
Each time that happens, the bats use up about a month's supply of
fat. If they use up too much stored food, they will starve before
spring, when they can hunt again.

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If you go into a cave in June or July, be sure to look for baby
bats. If you do see pups, never touch or bother them. Leave quickly
and quietly.
Bats are mammals. They are the only flying animals that nurse.
This means that the mothers' bodies make milk to feed their babies.
Bat pups hang together in large groups called nurseries. Each
mother returns to feed her pup at least twice a night. The pups
need their mothers' milk to survive. If you disturb a nursery cave,
the frightened mothers may leave, and the pups will starve.


Besides disturbing their caves, people harm bats by destroying
their homes. People close off their attics and tear down old barns.
They seal off empty mines and cut down forests, where bats like to
Several kinds of bats are now in danger of dying out. In
some places there aren't enough bats left to keep down the
number of insect pests. Farmers lose crops, and mosquitoes
feast on us. People could use poisons to kill bugs, but poisons
can be dangerous to humans, other animals, and plants.


There are many ways people can help bats.

Some people put bat

Groups who care about

houses in their yards. Public

wild animals are putting

parks and nature centers

gates on cave entrances.

may have houses for large

Bats can zip easily through

groups of bats. See page 32

the gates, but people can't.

for plans to build your own
bat house.

In Midfield, Alabama,
elementary school children
can join the B. A. T. (Bats Are
Terrific) Club. Members help
spread the word that bats
are not scary.

If a bat flies past you in the
dark, listen closely. Maybe you
can hear the soft fast flutter of
its wings before it's gone. Even
if you can't, you can be sure
that the bat heard you.

Bat Facts
There are more than 980 different kinds of bats in the world. The bat in this
book, called the little brown bat, is the most common bat in the United States.
Here are some other kinds of bats:

CALIFORNIA LEAF-NOSED BATS live in lowland desert areas of the western

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U.S. and Mexico. Instead of using echolocation, these bats find bugs by listening for

their footsteps or wing beats. Then they pluck the katydid or moth from the ground or



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a plant. They can even hear a cricket walking!


HOG-NOSED BATS of Thailand are the tiniest bats and the world's
smallest mammals. About the size of bumblebees, they weigh less than a dime
and have a wingspan of just five and a half inches.

MEXICAN FREE-TAILED BATS winter in Mexico and return to caves
in the southern and western U.S. in spring. The largest colony has 20 million
free-tailed bats, in Bracken Cave, near San Antonio, TX. Some colonies have
lost huge numbers: Carlsbad Caverns, NM, now has 250,000 bats, down from
8 million; and Eagle Creek Cave, AZ, has only 30,000 bats now, down from 30 million.



GRAY BATS are endangered. They can hibernate in only nine caves in the
U.S., where the temperature stays the same all winter. In summer, you may be able
to see gray bats at Nickajack Cave, near Chattanooga, TN; Rockbridge Memorial
State Park, near Columbia, MO; and Blowing Wind Cave, near Scottsboro, AL.

VAMPIRE BATS live in parts of Mexico, and Central and South
America. They are the only species of bats that eat blood.
Most often they feed on the blood of sleeping cattle or
other livestock. You can see vampire bats at
Seattle's Woodland Zoo.

FLYING FOXES are giants in the bat world, with wingspans of up to
feet. They eat fruit, nectar, and pollen. Australia's grey-headed
flying fox (shown here) feeds on the fruit of gum, eucalyptus,
and fig trees. Without these and other fruit bats to spread
seeds and pollen, many tropical and subtropical forests
around the world might not survive.


Bat House Plans
To build a simple bat house, you'll need wood, nails, and some fiberglass
screening. Just cut boards to the dimensions shown and nail them together tightly.

Some fiberglass screening stretched across the inside back wall will provide toeholds

for the bats. Hang your bat house high in a tree or on the side of a building. In warm
regions, hang the house where it will be shaded most of the day. In cooler areas,
make sure the house gets several hours of sun each day.
For more information on bats and bat houses, more detailed plans, and even
prebuilt bat houses, you can write to Bat Conservation International, P. O. Box
162603, Austin, TX 78716.
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Ann Earle was graduated
from the University of Chicago
with a Master of Arts degree in
humanities and is now on the
faculty of St. Michael’s College in
Colchester, Vermont. Ms. Earle
first became fascinated by bats
on a camping trip out West. She
often watches them at night in
her backyard, where she has two
bat houses. Ann Earle lives in
Richmond, Vermont.

Henry Cole teaches elemen¬
tary science at The Langley
School in McLean, Virginia. He
enjoys gardening and watching
bats catch insects over the lake
outside his house. Henry Cole
lives in Reston, Virginia.

Jacket an

Henry Cole




Bats sleep all clay, B an zip and zoom through the darkness as they hunt. But bats won’t
art you—they hunt at night because that’s when their favorite insects are easiest to
e, a
A little brown bat can eat half its weight in insects every night. That’s a lot of
mosquitoes! After learning all about bats you’re sure to want them around—so we’ve
included plans for building a bat house.
Here are some other Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science books you might enjoy:

® My Visit to the








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Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science books help satisfy a young
child’s curiosity about how the world works. Each book in the
series introduces basic science concepts and builds on them
using a step-by-step method, based on theories about how
young children learn best.
Stage 1 books explain simple and easily observable
science concepts for preschool- and kindergartenage children.

Trace yen r \ u
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Stage 2 books explore more challenging concepts
for children in the primary grades and include
hands-on activities that children can do


9 780060 234805

ISBN 0-0b-ClE34fl0-fcj