the.com/bat
the only mammal that figured out powered flight while everyone else just glided and quit
means A flying nocturnal mammal with wings made of skin stretched between elongated finger bones; also, separately, a stick or club used to strike a ball in games like baseball and cricket.
from Two unrelated words sharing a spelling. The flying creature was once called the 'backe' or 'bakke' in Middle English, borrowed from a Scandinavian source (compare Old Norse forms behind Danish 'aftenbakke,' roughly 'evening-flapper'); the form drifted to 'bat' by the 16th century. The club is older and separate, from Old English 'batt' meaning a cudgel or staff, possibly reinforced by Old French 'batte' (from 'battre,' to beat) — so one bat flies and the other hits.
- echo vision
- navigates total darkness by screaming and reading the echoes
- upside down
- hangs from feet that lock without muscle effort
- pollination crew
- agave needs them; no bats, no tequila
- longevity freak
- some live 40 years despite tiny body size
- crop guardian
- one colony eats tons of insects nightly
mexican free-tailed bat — largest bat colony in the world at bracken cave, texas with 20 million individuals
bumblebee bat — smallest bat species at 1.3 inches long, endemic to thailand