240 Tons of Bats | National Geographic

are you afraid of bats are you willing
to be persuaded that maybe they’re not
so bad let’s shed a little light on the
subject
this is a bat cave in southwestern Texas
where bats come to have their young
you’re looking at 240 tons of Mexican
free-tailed bats roughly 200 bats per
square foot of cave space even the
island of Manhattan is this densely
packed until recently
local residents might have been inclined
to wipe out a cave like this because the
bat has acquired such a bad reputation
but now these productive citizens of the
animal kingdom are being protected as
they struggle to survive consider just
how hard it is to reach adulthood
even with mom right there with the baby
of the cave
first of all baby might fall and
carnivorous insects cover the floor of
the cave ready to chow down on those too
young to fly even if they learn to fly
inexperienced bats might impale
themselves on the thorn bushes outside
dan speaking of outside yes what’s
waiting for the young juicy oblivious
bats right at the mouth of the cave okay
so why do you care whether bats survive
or not
well when these bats leave the cave as a
group all at once flying at speeds up to
45 miles per hour
they’ll eat pesky insects a lot of pesky
insects say about a quarter of a million
tons in a single night
that’s make up a quarter of all mammal
species and yet their numbers are
declining but there are vital thread in
the tapestry of life and besides that
well they’re even kind of cute
in a weird kind of way