By: Lisa Kruger
Murray County News
Have you noticed the abundance of bats flying around town lately? Are they visiting you in your home? Although they can be quite a nuisance, bats are quite fascinating, they can also wreak havoc on your home and your sanity!
Bats make up a quarter of all mammals. Yep, you read that right. A quarter of all mammals are bats. There are more than 1,100 species of bats in the world. That’s a lot of bats! Bats are the only mammals capable of continued flight.
Reproduction
Gestation is 40 days – 6 months (bigger bats have longer gestation periods).
Litter size is mostly one pup. For their size, bats are the slowest reproducing mammals on earth. At birth, a pup weighs up to 25 percent of its mother’s body weight, which is like a human mother giving birth to a 31 pound baby! Offspring typically are cared for in maternity colonies, where females congregate to bear and raise the young. Male bats do not help to raise the pups.
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