Fascinating Facts About Bats: The Only Flying Mammal
Explore the incredible life processes of bats, the only mammal capable of sustained flight, from their unique movement and body covering to nutrition, respiration, reproduction, and more.
Fascinating Facts About Bats: The Only Flying Mammal
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Presentation Transcript
KINGDOM: AnimaliaPHYLUM: ChordataCLASS: Mammalia Life Processes - Bat
Movement • Flight • Only mammal that can achieve sustained flight • Wings – webbed forelimbs; membrane is VERY elastic • Digits – bones periodically spaced out among the wing flap; fan-shaped; very flexible due to low calcium levels
Body Covering • Fur • Membrane between digits - flexible
Support • Skeleton: fingers, humerous, radius, ulna, skull, spine, thumb, elbow joint • Digit bones are very flexible due to lack of calcium
Nutrition • Bugs - consumes 1/3 of it’s body weight in bugs each day. • Fruit • Water – drink by skimming across surface water and then licking fur • Two sharp teeth to puncture through hard shell of insect
Respiration • Breath air
Circulation • Standard circulatory system; warm-blooded • Heart is extremely large compared to size of body; beats 1400 beats per minute down to 20 beats per minute depending on species • Because Bats hang upside down they have one-way valves in their arteries as well as their veins to help pump the blood through their body. • Valves will close to retain blood in body during inactivity to retain body heat or radiate heat from the body while extremely active such as flying
Excretion • Guano - Bat feces so rich in nutrients that they mine it an use it as fertilizer.
Responses • Echolocation – Bats use sonography to create a mental picture of what is in front of them. • Eyes – bats can see quite well • Hibernation during cold months • Touch receptors to help fine tune flying and catching insects
Reproduction • Live birth • Feed their young through mammary glands