Can I adopt a bat as a pet?

I don’t think so.

In terms of number of species, bats are second only to rodents. Except for the Arctic and Antarctic and some remote ocean islands, bats are found everywhere in the world, with the most bats in the tropics and subtropics. Almost all bats rest during the day and forage at night. Bats vary widely in color, fur texture and facial shape. The bat's wings evolved from the forelimbs during the evolutionary process and are composed of the skin (wing membrane) connected between its slender claws. A bat's snout resembles that of a rodent or a fox. The outer ears protrude forward, are large, and are very flexible. The bat has a short neck, broad chest and shoulders, well-developed breast meat, and slender hips and legs. Except for the wing membrane, the whole body of the bat is covered with hair. The back is gray, tan, brown or black in different shades, while the ventral side is lighter in color.

Bats are the only mammals that have evolved the ability to truly fly, and there are more than 900 species. Most of them also have acute auditory directional (or echolocation) systems. Flying foxes and fruit bats are completely vegetarian. Most bats feed on insects. Because bats eat large numbers of insects, they play an important role in the balance of insect reproduction and may even help control pests. Some bats also eat fruits, pollen, and nectar; vampire bats in tropical America feed on the blood of mammals and large birds. These bats sometimes transmit rabies. Bats are distributed worldwide. In the tropics, bats are so abundant that they form large colonies in people's homes and public buildings.

Bats vary greatly in body size. The largest flying fox has a wingspan of 1.5 meters, while Kitty's hognose bat has a wingspan of only 15 centimeters. Bats also vary widely in color, fur texture and facial appearance. Bat wings evolved from forelimbs during evolution. Except for the thumb, each finger of the forelimb is extremely elongated, and a flying membrane extends downward from the forearm and upper arm to the side of the body to the ankle of the lower limb. The thumb has a claw at the end.

Most bats also have a two-layer membrane between their legs, which is composed of dark exposed skin. The snout of a bat resembles that of a rodent or a fox. The outer ear projects forward and is usually very large and mobile. Many bats also have nasal lobes, which are made of skin and connective tissue that surround or flap above the nostrils. The nasal lobe is thought to influence vocalization and echolocation.

The bat's neck is short; its chest and shoulders are wide, with well-developed chest muscles; and its hips and legs are slender. Except for the wing membrane, the bat has hair all over its body. The back is gray, tan, brown or black in different shades, while the ventral side is lighter in tone. Bats that live in open areas often have spots or mottled patches on their fur, and the colors vary. Bats have different feeding habits, some are predatory, or they help pollinate and disperse fruits, thereby affecting the natural order. Vampire bats are a serious problem for humans. The guano of insectivorous bats has long been used in agriculture as fertilizer.

The sexual cycles of the entire bat colony are synchronized, so most mating occurs within a few weeks. The gestation period is from 6 or 7 weeks to 5 or 6 months. Females of many species move to a specialized nursing habitat after pregnancy. Bats usually give birth to 1 to 4 offspring per litter. The pups are hairless or less hairy when they are born, and often cannot see or hear for a period of time. The cubs are cared for by their parents for 5 weeks to 5 months, depending on the species.

Almost all bats rest during the day and come out to look for food at night. This habit allows them to attack sleeping prey without being harmed by other animals or high-temperature sunlight. Bats usually like to roost in isolated places, such as caves, crevices, caves or buildings, and some also roost on trees and rocks. They always rest upside down. They generally gather in groups ranging from dozens to hundreds of thousands. Bats with the ability to echolocate can produce short, high-frequency sound pulses that are reflected back when they encounter nearby objects. Bats hear the reflected echoes and can determine the location and size of prey and obstacles. This ability requires highly sensitive ears and close integration of the vocal and auditory centers. Individual bats may also communicate with each other using acoustic pulses. A small number of bats rely on smell and vision to find food.

Although they have wings, they look a lot like birds. But they have no feathers and don't lay eggs. The reason they are mammals is that the females give birth to young and nurse them with milk.

[Edit this paragraph] Food habits

Bat animals have a wide range of food habits. Some species like nectar and fruits, and some like to eat fish, frogs, insects, suck animal blood, and even Eat other bats. Generally speaking, large bats usually feed on fruits or nectar, while most small bats mainly prey on insects.

Insect-eating bats have echolocation systems to varying degrees, so they are called "living radars." With the help of this system, they can fly and catch food in a completely dark environment, use echolocation under a lot of interference, and send out ultrasonic signals without affecting normal breathing. The snouts and snouts of their heads have structures called "nose lobes", and there are very complex special skin folds around them. This is a unique ultrasonic device that has the function of emitting ultrasonic waves and can continuously Continuously emits high-frequency ultrasonic waves. If they encounter obstacles or flying insects, these ultrasonic waves can be reflected back, and then received by their extraordinary large auricles, so that the feedback information can be analyzed in their tiny brains. This ultrasonic detection sensitivity and resolution are extremely high, allowing them to not only determine the direction and locate their own flight path based on the echo, but also identify different insects or obstacles to effectively avoid or hunt. Bats rely on accurate echolocation and extremely soft membranes to hover freely in the air. They can even fly in dexterous curves and constantly change the direction of ultrasonic waves to prevent insects from interfering with its information system and trying to escape.

Like other animals, many bats are becoming increasingly rare in nature and tend to become extinct. Poisons and wood protection chemicals used to kill insects kill them during hibernation, and many misconceptions also lead humans to hunt them in large numbers. The hollow trees inhabited by some species were cut down and ruins demolished or rebuilt to perfection, rendering them unviable. Bats play an important role in maintaining the ecological balance of nature. Various insectivorous bats can eliminate a large number of mosquitoes, armyworms, scarabs, nun bugs and other pests. They can prey on more than 3,000 mosquitoes in one night, which is beneficial to humans. The excrement collected by bats is also a good fertilizer and is useful for agricultural production. The processed bat guano is called "Ye Ming Sha" and is a type of traditional Chinese medicine. Bats are also an important object for studying animal orientation, positioning and dormancy. The secrets of their radiation technology are not yet fully understood. Humans only know what bats can do, but still don’t know how they do it, so we need to save those animals. Endangered species are imperative.

Tips: 1. There are many kinds of bats, with about 900 species in the world. The number of bat species ranks second among mammals, after rodents.

2 The wingspan of the little pig-nosed bat is only 14 centimeters, while the wingspan of the flying fox, which is as big as a puppy, is up to 2 meters wide.

3 Some bats can fly at speeds of more than 50 kilometers per hour.

4 Bats can capture and distinguish 250 sets of echoes in 1 second. (Note: One round trip of sound waves counts as one group.)

5 Starting from autumn, bats have accumulated a layer of fat on their lower abdomen, and before hibernation, their weight becomes more than 1.5 times that of summer.

6 Some bats can fish, and the Mexican rabbit-lipped bat can catch more than 30 small fish in one night.

7 A 20-gram insectivorous bat can eat 1.8-3.6 kilograms of insects in a year.

8 A colony of 100 bats.

[Edit this paragraph] Habitat environment

Bats live in various large and small caves, gaps, ceilings, partitions of ancient buildings, tree holes, and rock crevices on mountains. Some southern frugivorous bats also hide behind the leaves of palm and banana trees. Some bat populations have thousands of bats together, some bats have male and female bats living together, and some have separate male and female bats. Many wood-dwelling bats migrate to warmer areas during the winter, sometimes flying thousands of miles. Temperate cave bats generally hibernate. Bats breed only once a year, during the earlier warm season, when bats give birth to young.

[Edit this paragraph] Medicinal value

It can be used as a traditional Chinese medicine for chronic cough, malaria, gonorrhea, eye nebula, etc.

Its excrement is also a traditional Chinese medicine called Yemingsha, which is used for eye diseases.

"Baopuzi" said: "Thousand-year-old bats are as white as snow. When gathered, they hang upside down, which is why the brain is heavy. If this thing is dried in the shade and then taken, it will make people live longer", "Wu's Materia Medica" It is also said that bats "dried in the shade after the beginning of summer can cure dark eyes and make people see light at night". "Shui Jing" even said that bats "can make people become immortals if they take it".

A cave was discovered on the hillside of Huangjiagou Village, Shuanglong Town, Xixia County, Henan Province. Inside the cave, there is "Ye Ming Sand", a century-old bat guano with medicinal value. The cave is more than 600 meters deep, 15 meters wide and 40 centimeters narrow. There are groups of bats hanging on the stone walls in the cave. The feces they excrete has accumulated nearly two meters thick and is like dark brown soil. According to reports, bat guano has the function of clearing away heat, improving eyesight and removing internal heat, and its medicinal value accumulated over time is even higher. According to calculations by relevant experts, these bat guanos, which are medically called "luminous sand", are at least a hundred years old and weigh more than 80 tons. Their age and quantity are rare in the country.

1. "Tang Materia Medica": Fuyi, because it has wings during the day. "Li's Materia Medica" says that it is the Heavenly Rat. It is also said: There is a celestial rat in Xiping Mountain. It is taken in November and December. Its brain controls women’s pimples.

2. "Outline": Bats have the effect of purging people, and the prescriptions for treating golden sores all lead to lower benefits, and its poison can be known.

[Edit this paragraph] Bats and bionics

Bionics is composed of the Greek word bion, which means life, and ics, which means engineering technology. word. It has only been used since about 1960. The functions of living things are far superior to any artificially manufactured machinery. Biomimicry is a discipline that aims to realize and effectively apply biological functions in engineering. For example, regarding information reception (sensory function), information transmission (nerve function), automatic control system, etc., the structure and function of this organism have given great inspiration in mechanical design. Examples of bionics that can be cited include applying the body shape or skin structure of dolphins (which prevents turbulence on the body surface when swimming) to submarine design principles. Biomimicry is also considered to be a subject closely related to cybernetics, while cybernetics is a subject that mainly compares, studies and explains biological phenomena with mechanical principles.

Flies are spreaders of bacteria, and everyone hates them. However, the fly's wings (also called balance rods) are "natural navigators", and people imitated them to make "vibrating gyroscopes". This kind of instrument has been used in rockets and high-speed aircraft to realize automatic driving. The fly's eye is a "compound eye" composed of more than 3,000 small eyes. People imitate it to make "fly eye lenses". "Fly's Eye

Currently, scientists know that animals in nature are mainly divided into two types of magnetic sensory positioning: one is a simple "compass" sensory function, which is based on the interaction between magnetite particles in the body and the external environment. The other is that some birds can accurately determine the direction of flight based on the magnetic field light intensity they "see" at different locations in the earth's magnetic field.

Ultrasonic positioning

Bats have a high ability to distinguish sounds, and have structures in their ears that can locate ultrasonic waves. Bats are the only mammals that can truly fly, and are very suitable for living in the dark. Their eyes are almost useless, and they emit ultrasonic waves and reflect them. The echo is used to identify objects. When flying, the mouth and nose emit an ultrasonic wave that is inaudible to humans. After encountering an insect, the bat will know the specific location of the prey and go to capture it. The frequency of sound heard can reach 300 kilohertz/second, while humans are generally below 14 kilohertz/second.

Bats are not born with the ability to use sonar

A few days ago, American researchers have discovered that bats' ability to use sonar to locate, hunt and navigate is not innate. The research team came to this conclusion by analyzing the oldest bat fossils discovered so far (about 52 million years ago). . They analyzed its skeletal fossils and found that this bat had highly developed wings, but did not find any signs of its ability to produce sonic sounds.

Researchers say that research on bats will continue, but this discovery, at least for now, resolves a long-standing debate in the scientific community: does bats use sonar first or fly first? The obvious answer is to fly first.

The famous "Spalatier's Bat Experiment"

One night in the summer of 1793, the Italian scientist Spalatier walked out of his house and released a bat that was kept in a cage for experiments. of several bats. I saw the bats shaking their membrane-covered limbs, flying lightly into the night sky, and making a free "squeaking" sound. When Splatier saw this, he was puzzled because he was releasing bats. Before, he had pricked the bat's eyes with a small needle. "How can a blind bat fly so quickly?" He was determined to solve this mystery.

Before conducting this experiment, Splatier always believed that the reason why bats can fly freely in the night sky is that they can dexterously avoid various obstacles to capture in very dark conditions. Flying insects must have a pair of very keen eyes. The reason why he wanted to blind the bat's eyes was to prove this point. The fact was completely beyond his expectation.

The unexpected situation aroused his curiosity even more. "Without eyes, how do bats rely on to identify obstacles and catch food?" So he blocked the bat's nose and released it. As a result, the bat still flew easily. "Could the secret be in the wings?" Splatier applied a layer of paint on the bat's wings this time. However, this did not affect their flight at all.

Finally, Splatier plugged the bat's ears again. This time, the bat flying into the sky bumped around and fell down quickly. Only then did Splatier figure out that bats rely on hearing to determine direction and capture targets. He conducted four experiments in one day.

Spalatier's new discovery caused a shock. Since then, many scientists have further studied the subject. Finally, people finally figured out: bats use "ultrasound" to navigate at night. Its larynx emits a high-frequency sound wave that is higher than what human ears can hear. This sound wave propagates along a straight line and returns quickly when it hits an object. They use their ears to receive the returned ultrasonic wave, causing it to The door can make accurate judgments and guide them to fly.

The scientific principle of "ultrasound" has been widely used in navigation, navigation and medicine.

Bats are good at flying in the air and can perform various "aerobatic flights" such as circular turns, sudden braking and rapid changes in flight speed. Bats hide in caves, tree holes or gaps in roof eaves; they fly in the air at dusk and night, hunting mosquitoes, flies, moths and other insects. Bats prey on a large number of pests and are beneficial to humans, so they should be protected.

In summer, the female bat gives birth to a fully developed larvae. The newborn larvae are covered with downy hair and hang firmly on the mother's chest with their claws to suck milk. They will not fall off when the mother flies.

Bat has two wings used for flying. The structure of the wings is different from that of bird wings. It is composed of membranes connected between the forelimbs, hindlimbs and tail. The second, third, fourth and fifth fingers of the forelimb are particularly long and suitable for supporting the skin membrane; the first finger is very small and grows outside the skin membrane, with hooks at the ends of the fingers. The hind limbs are short, and the feet stick out of the skin. There are five toes with hooks on the ends of the toes. When resting, they often hang their bodies upside down in caves or under the eaves by their feet. When crawling on trees or on the ground, it relies on its first fingers and feet to grasp rough objects and move forward. The bones of bats are very light, and the sternum also has a protrusion similar to the keel of a bird, which is covered with muscles that affect the movement of the wings.

The bat's mouth is very wide, with small and sharp teeth inside the mouth, suitable for catching flying insects. Its eyesight is weak, but its hearing and touch are very sensitive. Some experiments have shown that bats mainly rely on hearing to detect insects. When bats fly, ultrasonic waves can be generated in the throat, and the ultrasonic waves are emitted through the mouth. When ultrasonic waves encounter insects or obstacles and are reflected back, bats can receive them with their ears and determine whether the detection target is an insect or an obstacle, and how far away it is. People usually call this way of detecting targets by bats "echolocation".

The signals emitted by bats when foraging, orienting, and flying are composed of ultrasonic sound elements similar to speech phonemes. The bat must receive the echo and analyze the sound characteristics of the echo such as amplitude, frequency, signal interval, etc., before it can decide what action to take next.

Bats that rely on echo ranging and positioning only emit a simple sound signal. This signal is usually composed of one or two phonemes appearing repeatedly according to a certain pattern. When the bat is flying, the signal it emits bounces off the object, forming an echo with different sound characteristics depending on the nature of the object. The bat then determines the nature and location of the object after analyzing sound characteristics such as frequency, pitch and sound spacing of the echoes.

Different parts of the bat's brain intercept different components of the echo signal. Some neurons in the bat brain are sensitive to the frequency of echoes, while others are sensitive to the time interval between two consecutive sounds. The coordination of various parts of the brain enables bats to make judgments about the properties of reflective objects. The flexibility and accuracy with which bats use echolocation to capture insects is amazing. According to some statistics, bats can capture an insect in a few seconds and more than a dozen insects in a minute. At the same time, bats also have amazing anti-interference capabilities. They can detect a special sound from the chaotic and noisy echoes, and then quickly analyze and identify the sound to distinguish whether the object that reflects the sound wave is an insect or a stone. , or more accurately determine whether an insect is edible or inedible.

When 20,000 bats live in the same cave, they will not interfere with each other due to too much ultrasonic waves in the space. The accuracy and anti-interference ability of bat echolocation have important reference value for people to study how to improve the sensitivity and anti-interference ability of radar.

[Edit this paragraph] Symbolic meaning

Bats (mammals; also known as fairy mice and flying squirrels.) are shaped like mice, with membranes connecting the front and rear limbs to the body. They fly at night and hunt for food. Mosquitoes and other small insects.

Yuan Zhen's poem "Scenery of the Mid-Autumn Festival" in the 15th chapter of "Changqing Collection": "When the curtain is broken, fireflies come in, and the windows are bright and bats fly." The province of bats is called "bat" because "bat" and "福" Homophonically, people use bat to represent blessing, good fortune, longevity, joy and other auspiciousness. Five bats are painted in folk paintings, which means "five blessings come to the door".

In the old days, silk brocades often used bat patterns as patterns. The velvet flowers worn by women on weddings, birthdays and other festive occasions (such as "five bats holding birthdays", etc.) and some clothing and utensils are also often shaped like bats.

Feng Menglong's "Laughing House." "Bat Riding on the Wall": "The phoenix lives a long life, and a hundred crows congratulate it, but the bat does not come." It said that it was not a bird but a four-legged animal. Later, it was Qilin's turn to celebrate his birthday, and all the beasts came to congratulate him, but the bats were not there. This time it said that it had wings and could fly, and that it was a bird, not a beast. This joke satirizes Bat as a cunning fence-sitter.

The Jingpo people in Yunnan Province generally believe that bats are a symbol of insidiousness and cunning. It is said that in ancient times, the temperature of the sun was so high that the animals on the ground were roasted intolerably and cursed one after another. The sun was very angry when he heard this, turned his head and went up to the sky. From then on the world was dark. So all the animals gathered together and agreed to raise some gold and silver to invite the sun to come out. When the bird raised money from the bat, the bat folded its wings and said that it was not a bird but a rat and was unwilling to donate. When the mouse found it, it flapped its wings again and said that it was a bird and not a mouse. No donations either. The bat just cheated and cheated without giving any money. Therefore, the Jingpo people call those who are duplicitous, adapt to circumstances, and do one thing in front of others but another behind their backs as "bat people."

In Chinese culture, bats are definitely a symbol of "blessing", which can be seen almost everywhere in many preserved ancient buildings, brick carvings, and stone carvings, needless to say. But if people are called bats, there is no auspicious meaning in it at all. The above legend has made it very clear.

[Edit this paragraph] Operetta "Bat" (Johann Strauss)

Comic opera in three acts, the French Mayek and Arevi based on the German writer Bayliss "New Year's Eve" was adapted from Niedik's comedy "Prison".

The manager of the Vienna Theater bought the script of "New Year's Eve" and asked Hafner and Gurney to adapt it into a three-act German operetta suitable for performance in Vienna. Trauss composed the operetta "Bat" in three acts. On April 5, 1874, the play premiered at the Vienna Theater.

The operetta "Bat" is the most famous of the operettas written by Johann Strauss. It is also one of Johann Strauss's representative works. The work is of extremely high artistic quality. For more than 100 years, "Bat" has entered the Grand Opera House with its extraordinary artistic achievements and has become the repertoire of first-class opera houses in many countries. Every year before Christmas at the Vienna Opera House, a real "Vienna opera" - Johann Strauss's operetta "Bat" is performed.

The plot of "Bat" is fascinating, the performance is magnificent, and the performance features humor. The overture to "Bat" is even more well-known to every household. It has become a very popular classic since it came out and is an indispensable piece of music in concerts.

[Edit this paragraph] Korean movie "Bat"

Title: Bat

Translation: Thirst

Director: Park Chan-wook

Starring: Song Kang-ho, Kim Ok-bin, Shin Ha-kyun, Kim Hae-sook, Hwang Woo-seul-hye

Genre: Romance/Love

Length: 133 minutes

Level : Teenagers not allowed to watch (South Korea)

Distribution: CJ ENTERTAINMENT (Distribution)

Release date: April 30, 2009 (South Korea)

"Bat" It is an emotional thriller about incest and infatuation. It tells the story of a respected priest who became a vampire due to an accidental infection with a virus, and his love story with a married woman who is the same age as his own daughter.

Song Kang-ho plays a priest who becomes a vampire in the film, while TV star Kim Ok-bin plays the young woman who has a fatal temptation for him - a vicious woman who kills her husband for love. The passion between the two is the focus of the film. The Korean media is optimistic that Jin Yubin will become the "Korean Tang Wei" with this film, and the two people's temperaments do have some similarities.