Well, Halloween is just around the corner...so it seems like the perfect time to talk about bats— because honestly, they’re one of the most misunderstood animals out there and they get a bad rap for no reason.
Everyone throws bats into the “creepy” category, but the more you learn about them, the more you realize they’re basically holding entire ecosystems together.
A single bat can eat six hundred to over a thousand mosquitoes in just one hour. That alone should earn them a trophy. These things are flying pest-control units, and because of that they save farmers billions of dollars every year by reducing both crop loss and the need for pesticides.
And here’s the part people don’t realize: when bats disappear, you can actually measure the fallout. Insect populations spike, predators shift to eating more small mammals, disease pressure rises, and the food web tilts. They’re not just “helpful” — they’re a stabilizing force. A lot of plants even rely on bats specifically for pollination. Some bloom only at night for this very reason.
Their anatomy is wild too — bat wings are actually modified hands. You’re literally looking at stretched-out fingers with a membrane attached. And some species can enter this short-term mini-hibernation called daily torpor, switching from a thousand-beats-per-minute flight metabolism to basically sleep mode in minutes.
They also pull off stuff mid-air that birds physically can’t, because their bones are flexible instead of rigid. They’re tiny aerial acrobats.
And the whole “bats are dirty and dangerous” thing? Completely backwards. Less than one percent carry rabies — which is lower than dogs — and only three of the fourteen-hundred-plus bat species drink blood (and zero of those live in North America). They can also pick out their own pup’s voice in a colony of thousands, which is insane considering it’s basically a wall of sound in those caves.
Oh — and they’re not blind. People assume they are because of echolocation, but in low-light conditions a lot of bat species actually see better than we do.
And now for my favorite fact:
no bats → no agave → no tequila.
The whole tequila industry owes its existence to nighttime pollination.
So even if you’re not a “bat person,” if you like mosquitoes staying under control, farmers having a fighting chance, or the occasional margarita… you kind of already are.
Spooky? Not really.
Underrated? 100%.
Also....maybeee it's just me.....but they're pretty dang cute, too.