134 ] Animals in the Wild 



in this colony! They are the little brown bats, of which there are 

 more than two dozen kinds in the United States. 



Bats are not good zoo exhibition subjects because they sleep in 

 the daytime. Aside from roosting at Carlsbad and other, smaller, 

 caves, the little brown bat takes refuge in hollow trees and under 

 the roofs or eaves of houses. Your child may shudder, as many 

 adults do, at the thought of a bat's approach. It is a pity that so 

 many superstitions have grown up about these creatures of dark- 

 ness. Despite their sinister appearance they are really useful 

 animals, as they eat large numbers of insects catching them in 

 mid-flight. 



Occasionally bats do become entangled in a human being's 

 hair. Such incidents are accidental never intentional. As a matter 

 of fact the bat rarely flies into things, thanks to its own special 

 radar system. As it flies it emits high-pitched squeaks far too 

 shrill to be caught by the human ear. The sound waves hit any 

 nearby solid objects and bounce back, a signal to the bat to 

 swerve aside. 



A Four-foot Wingspread: The "flying fox," the world's largest 

 bat, lives in India and on tropical islands of the Pacific. Its wing- 

 spread measures more than four feet from tip to tip. The flying 

 foxes live on fruit and leave their tree roosts at night to fly to 

 orchards or wild fruit trees, often traveling many miles to their 

 goal. Because of their potential danger to fruit, none of these 

 bats may be brought into the United States, even for a zoo. 



Blood-sucking Bats: The vampire bat is the one kind of bat that 

 really deserves a place in horror tales; it actually lives on the 

 blood of animals and humans. At dusk these vampire bats, which 

 dwell in Mexico and tropical South America, begin their hunt 

 for cattle, wild creatures, or human beings who are susceptible 

 to attack through living in unscreened homes. 



A bite from the vampire bat's sharp teeth is not painful nor 

 would it be harmful except that sometimes this bat is infected 

 with a disease that is transmitted to the victim and usually proves 

 fatal. The vamoire laps the blood as it flows from the wound. 



