For the love of bats

Original Post from 10/23/2015

​Halloween is soon approaching and before too long vampires, ghost, goblins, princesses and cowboys will be hitting the streets to do some trick or treating. Unfortunately for us that means we will soon be taking down our Halloween decorations. The ghost and bats will no longer hang from the trees and the jack-o-lanterns will no longer have a place on the porch.

Speaking of bats and vampires, did you know that not all bats are the blood sucking type that we see in scary Halloween movies?  Actually there is only one bat that feeds on blood, that is the vampire bat. Vampire bats are found in Central and South America.  Most of the bats that live in our area are insectivores, insect eaters, and make great pollinators as well. Bats are known to consume up to 600 mosquitoes in just one hour. Think how many more bug bites we would get if we didn’t have any bats. Bats are known to pollinate bananas, peaches and cashews as well as many other types of fruits.  There are actually over 300 types of fruit that rely on bats to pollinate them.  Bats are very interesting little mammals if you give them a chance.

To learn more about our local bats you can visit the Cincinnati Museum Center this Saturday, 10/24/2015 from 10 am-3 pm for a special event called Batfest.  Batfest will feature several organizations from around the Tri-state that are dedicated to teaching you about bats. Please visit this link for more information about the event, https://www.cincymuseum.org/events/batfest.  We hope to see you there! 

For those that are unable to attend this Saturdays festivities at the Cincinnati Museum Center please check out the Ohio Division of Wildlife Field Guide on Mammals that is posted below. There is a little something about each of the 11 bats that can be found in Ohio.