Holy misdirected anger! Bats not to blame, say scientists.
Often associated with darkness, bats have long been vilified in Western culture. And now scientists鈥� claims that a species of bat likely played a role in the origin of the coronavirus pandemic hasn鈥檛 helped their popularity.
But to bat biologists, such animus is misguided. For one thing, bats are incredibly diverse: There are more than 1,400 different species of bats, making up between a quarter and a fifth of all mammal species.
鈥淧eople really do think of a bat as just one kind of animal,鈥� says Gerald Carter, an assistant professor and behavioral ecologist at Ohio State University.
Why We Wrote This
During times of crisis, it鈥檚 natural for people to try to identify a scapegoat, or in this case, a scape-bat. But scientists suggest that we resist this urge.
Bats also play vital roles in the ecosystems they inhabit. By spreading seeds, fruit bats help regenerate rainforests, and by eating insects, insectivorous bats help protect plants 鈥� including crops 鈥� from pests. When it comes to bats, say scientists who study them, we鈥檝e got it all wrong.
鈥淏ats are ecologically just really important,鈥� Professor Carter says. 鈥淭hey provide billions of dollars鈥� worth of ecosystem services to people.鈥�
So what exactly is a bat?
鈥淏ats are the mammals that can fly,鈥� Dr. Carter says, and, besides sharing a common ancestor, that鈥檚 all that unifies all bats.听
Counter to the popular image of bats, not all of them are nocturnal. A few bat species have been observed searching for food during the day.听
Bats don鈥檛 all look like one another either. Some are massive, like the Philippine golden-crowned flying fox, whose wingspan stretches more than 5 feet. Others are tiny, like the inch-long Kitti鈥檚 hog-nosed bat, also called the bumblebee bat.听
And although the horror-story view of bats often depicts them as blood-sucking, bat diets are extremely varied from species to species. While some do feed on blood, many munch on insects or fruit, and one kind of bat even eats fish.
Vampire bats draw perhaps the most ire. And although they can be reservoirs for disease, the way that humans that live near them often respond is to try to eradicate all the bats around, says Dr. Carter. And that can create more problems.
A found that reducing vampire bat populations may actually increase rabies cases, likely because of a sort of herd immunity in some populations. When bats are killed off indiscriminately, Dr. Carter explains, more individuals from farther afield will be moving around and interacting with one another, thus bringing more disease into a given population.听
We know that bats are really sensitive to disturbances, says Joy O鈥橩eefe, assistant professor and wildlife extension specialist at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. So between eradication and habitat loss, bats are probably getting less and less healthy more broadly and that is increasing the likelihood of them being disease spreaders.听
It鈥檚 not all about disease, though. Those bats that eat insects or fruit also play key roles in agriculture and the broader ecosystem.
In the tropics, where all kinds of bats are often killed out of fear of vampire bats, fruit-eating bats have been found to play . Their diets help disperse seeds of a wide range of plants.
Snacking on crop and forest pests in North America, some insectivorous bats may be vital to agriculture as we know it. Researchers estimate that losing bats across the continent in agricultural losses.听
Shifting perceptions
Dr. Carter鈥檚 enthusiasm for bats goes beyond their benefits to people and the broader ecosystem.听
鈥淚 just love bats so much,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a real deep-down thing.鈥� He compares vampire bats 鈥� the main subject of his research 鈥� to wolves.听
鈥淩ight now, people really value wolves. They put them on T-shirts, they say wolves are really majestic, cool, smart, and socially charismatic animals,鈥� Dr. Carter says. 鈥淏ut for a long time, people wanted to just eradicate wolves because the entire idea that we had of a wolf was that it was just terrible for ranchers and that they were really aggressive and nasty.鈥�
And, he says, to someone who studies them, vampire bats are all those same things, too.
Dr. O鈥橩eefe agrees that there is inherent value in understanding bats, regardless of what they do for us. 鈥淭hey represent kind of the pinnacle of evolution in my mind,鈥� she says. 鈥淭he fact that they can fly and that they use echolocation to navigate at night in the dark is remarkable. Bats are just super cool, and we know so little about them, and we have so much to learn from them.鈥�
Bats aren鈥檛 just diverse in how they eat or where they live or what they look like, too. They also have rich social lives that are incredibly varied among species, Dr. Carter says. For example, vampire bats 鈥� his subject of study 鈥撀爃ave very individualized relationships with one another, much like humans have distinct friendships. They display altruism by feeding and grooming one another, and those relationships seem to be reciprocal even among non-kin.听
There鈥檚 also a bat social system that seems unique in the animal kingdom: social groups entirely made up of unrelated individuals. Scientists still don鈥檛 quite understand why the greater spear-nosed bat forms such groups, Dr. Carter says, but the bonds among group members seem to be quite strong. When a young pup falls from the roost, other groups will try to attack it, but females 鈥� even unrelated to the pup 鈥� will guard it.
Over the last couple of decades, bat biologists and conservationists have made a concerted effort to change the perception of bats. A big push came with the discovery in the 2000s that white-nose syndrome was decimating North American bat populations. In fact, says Dr. O鈥橩eefe, some of the funding to save the bats across the U.S. was specifically allocated to outreach efforts to engage and educate the public about the importance of bats.
There have been children鈥檚 books like , scientists have worked with farmers to understand the role bats play in their fields, and bat biologists have hosted events and visited schools and libraries to foster a culture of appreciation for bats.听
And it seems to be working, says Dr. O鈥橩eefe, who was formerly director of the Center for Bat Research, Outreach, and Conservation at Indiana State University.听
鈥淐ertainly in North America, we have made really serious inroads in bat conservation and in people鈥檚 perceptions of bats,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 know if you鈥檝e noticed that in the supermarket or wherever you go and see Halloween stuff, but over the years, we鈥檝e all noticed that there鈥檚 been a big shift toward these smiling bats instead of bats with scary fangs and glowing red eyes. You don鈥檛 see that as much anymore.鈥�
