Lots of us aren’t very keen on bats. But the more we find out about them, the more amazing they turn out to be
B
ats have a bad rep: in a recent survey by the Bat Conservation Trust (BCT), 46% of people expressed negative feelings about bats. But just look at them! Bat carer Liz Vinson, a volunteer with the BCT, calls them “little furry humans with huge jazz hands. They have individual characters: some are divas; some are bone idle.”
Shirley Thompson, BCT’s honorary education officer, has been championing bats since the 1980s. “I still think they’re magic,” she says. “The more you find out about them, the more you realise what amazing creatures they are.”
Dr Joe Nuñez-Miño of BCT offers a few reasons why: “Their physiology is just incredible; they have remarkable healing, a really incredible immune system.” They are also surprisingly long-lived: one Brandt’s bat was ringed as an adult, then caught (alive) 41 years later. Incidentally, bats aren’t blind – they use echolocation because it is a wonderful tool for hunting in the dark – and, Vinson adds, reassuringly: “They won’t get stuck in your hair.”
