Bats Are Not Blind

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 85, 7 February 1941, Page 5

Bats Are Not Blind

W E tend to think that a mammal is a land animal but strangely enough none of the native mammals of New Zealand is really a land animal. For instance, the two types of native bats are flying animals, and the seal spends most of its life in the water, and the whale spends the whole of its life in the water, Bats are very peculiar creatures. They look like something that Heath Robinson. had Tigged up-rather like a mouse usine an umbrella

for wings. In England the common species of bat is called the flitter-mouse. Actually the bats are very closely related to the hedgehogs and other insect eating animals, but they are adapted for flight. New Zealand bats live on insects. The female bat has a single offspringshould we call it a batlet?-at a birth, and she carries the

baby about with her in the air and probably suckles it there as well. Sounds a bit acrobatic doesn’t it. Bats find their food at night and sleep during the day upside down, hanging on to some object with their claws. A bat is blind when it is first born and it is commonly thought that the adults are blind as well. We say "blind as a bat" don’t we? But the sense of sight is quite well developed and in addition to this the senses of smell and taste are present to a remarkable degree, They seem to possess some sixth sense as well as a sense of direction.- (From "Our Natural Heritage and What We Are Doing With It," by " Belinda," 2YA, January 20.)