06/11/2022
🦇From sucking your blood and potentially turning you into a vampire to perhaps being responsible for our latest global pandemic – this little creature gets enough criticism to drive one batty.
There are lots of references to the bat in our vocabulary – you can be “blind as a bat” (they aren’t blind), “batting 1000” – having a good result, maybe you “went to bat” for someone, or maybe you left a scene in a hurry- like a “bat out of hell.” (Right off the “bat,” I knew this could be endless), but I don’t want to act like an old “bat” so I’m hoping readers won’t “bat an eyelash” at this small diversion from the original intent of this article to share some information about bats – my intent is not to drive you “batty!”.
Let’s move on and start with dispelling some of the myths about bats – they are not blind and will not become entangled in your hair less than 1 out of 20,000 bats have rabies, and no bats in Washington State dine on blood.
Bats are immune to many diseases that are lethal to humans, like Ebola, SARS, and Nipah. Unfortunately, this makes them natural reservoirs for these diseases. Most disease spillover from bats, however, is human-caused. The SARS outbreak in China was caused by humans touching the dead carcasses of bats sold in wet markets. It is possible that our current outbreak of Covid came from a Chinese wet market – I think the jury is still out on that at this time, but in all cases, live bats are not transmitting the disease – humans handling dead bats are.
Actually, the benefits of bats far outweigh any problems that may incur with them. A female nursing little brown bat may consume her body weight in insects in one night during the summer. Bats help the rainforests – in some African, Asian, and European forests, bats are responsible for over 50% of the vegetation, spreading seeds through their guano (p**p) and pollinating while seeking nectar. Malaria-carrying mosquitoes are responsible for approximately 750,000 human deaths a year – one type of bat is capable of eating 1200 mosquitoes in a single hour!
Read the full Story by Mary Masingale by heading to our bio link.
