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Hello! The snakes from yesterday were really cute, weren't they? We won't be visiting them again for some time, though. Instead, today's creature is going to be something that's been described as mice-like puffballs with wings- i.e. bats.
Bats are actually really helpful to us in the same ways that spiders are! It's a shame that some people are scared of them, but they really do help keep insect populations down tremendously. A lot of bats also would far prefer to eat fruits and bugs more than anything else.
Let's get right to it, then!
Kitti's hog-nosed bat - Otherwise known as the bumblebee bat, these little guys might just be the world's smallest mammals! Even when they're fully grown, they probably won't reach more than just over an inch.
source
Fruit Bats / Megabats - They're not always as large as their name makes them sound! Though the largest of these guys can be up to 16" in lenght, the smallest may just be two and a half inches. They're also really useful in forrests, since they're all herbivorous and help to distribute both seeds and pollen of the plants that they visit.
Rodrigues Flying Fox - They're also a type of fruit bat, but here's a section for these furry red flying foxes! They're very sociable and live together with their families on Mauritius.
Rescued bats - These tiny babies were picked up in 2008 in Australia by the Australian Bat Clinic and Wildlife Trauma Centre as a result of torrential downpours.
Honduran White Bats - Believe it or not, these small cotton-ball like bats actually make their own tents by manipulating the shape of the leaves of plants around them to create tiny tents where they huddle under. They're not alone in their tent making, but they're probably at the top of the cute level! And if you think they look a bit odd, well... just think of them as IRL Swoobats- or as Swoobats as Video Game These Guys.
Random Tiny Bats
And onto the spider of the day!
As a change from yesterday's vegetarian spider, today we're going to look at the exact opposite. It's also a jumping spider- the Vampire Spider, Evarcha culicivora. To be honest, I think it's actually more of a Crusnik Spider than it is a straight vampire one, especially considering how it feeds! What these spiders do is to hunt specifically for mosquitoes that have recently filled themselves up with blood. You could definitely call them an ally of ours- those mosquitoes they hunt happen to be the main vector of malaria in the region that the vampire spiders live in.
Bats are actually really helpful to us in the same ways that spiders are! It's a shame that some people are scared of them, but they really do help keep insect populations down tremendously. A lot of bats also would far prefer to eat fruits and bugs more than anything else.
Let's get right to it, then!
Kitti's hog-nosed bat - Otherwise known as the bumblebee bat, these little guys might just be the world's smallest mammals! Even when they're fully grown, they probably won't reach more than just over an inch.
source
Fruit Bats / Megabats - They're not always as large as their name makes them sound! Though the largest of these guys can be up to 16" in lenght, the smallest may just be two and a half inches. They're also really useful in forrests, since they're all herbivorous and help to distribute both seeds and pollen of the plants that they visit.
Rodrigues Flying Fox - They're also a type of fruit bat, but here's a section for these furry red flying foxes! They're very sociable and live together with their families on Mauritius.
Rescued bats - These tiny babies were picked up in 2008 in Australia by the Australian Bat Clinic and Wildlife Trauma Centre as a result of torrential downpours.
Honduran White Bats - Believe it or not, these small cotton-ball like bats actually make their own tents by manipulating the shape of the leaves of plants around them to create tiny tents where they huddle under. They're not alone in their tent making, but they're probably at the top of the cute level! And if you think they look a bit odd, well... just think of them as IRL Swoobats- or as Swoobats as Video Game These Guys.
Random Tiny Bats
And onto the spider of the day!
As a change from yesterday's vegetarian spider, today we're going to look at the exact opposite. It's also a jumping spider- the Vampire Spider, Evarcha culicivora. To be honest, I think it's actually more of a Crusnik Spider than it is a straight vampire one, especially considering how it feeds! What these spiders do is to hunt specifically for mosquitoes that have recently filled themselves up with blood. You could definitely call them an ally of ours- those mosquitoes they hunt happen to be the main vector of malaria in the region that the vampire spiders live in.
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