Cuties!
I remember a warm darkening summer evening, strolling around with my dad and tracking the bats by their sonar blips. He didn’t believe I could really hear them, until I tracked the flight of one that nearly hit us, and he saw it.
eeewwwww…Gary, that was just wrong 
Not that I hate bats or anything (although I’m very opposed to them flying around my house, which they seem to like to do from time to time). It just that with this fever, I’m sure I’m going to have those fever induced dreams now, and they’re going to be about bats with big teeth 
Fruit bats! This belongs in the Cutie-Pie thread.
I love fruit bats! My dog looks like a fruit bat. Actually, I love bats in general.
(Thank you for tuning into GaryKelly’s Animal Chiffdom)
That’s funny, Em – we always called our old Daisy Dog “Fruit Bat” for the same reason!
I love bats; they eat mosquitoes. And on a horse farm this is a very good thing, what with West Nile and all …
In the general theme of unexpected cuteness (I love the bat in the lower left corner of Gary’s picture, looking right at the camera)…
The maned three-toed sloth
M
A few years ago there was an article on bats in some magazine like Smithsonian, talking about how interesting and usually harmless they are. The story I recall most is of a scientist who had two bats in a large cage in his office - one was a large bat of a loner type, not especially fond of cuddling with other bats, and the other was a small touchy-feely little guy who was always trying to get closer to the large bat, who would inch away from him. The large bat was slightly ill one day and the scientist saw that the little bat had snuggled up next to the large bat and put his wings around him. Is that sweet or what?
Susan
That is sweet 
Despite my lack of fondness of them flying around my house (although I’m sure they’re not fond of it either), I do think that they are very cool.
Here’s something I did not know until today:
Fruit Bat Quick Facts:
The largest of bats, and one of the most important to humans. Many of the fruits and vegetables we enjoy on our table would not exist without these bats. They disperse the seeds and pollinate the flowers of many plants.
Fruits that depend on bats for pollination or seed dispersal include:
Bananas
Peaches
Dates
Carob
Avocados
Jack fruit
Plantains
Mango
Guava
Cashews
Figs
Durian
Figs? I thought itty-bitty wasps did that. Or ants. Or something.
We also love bats, living near a marsh. We love to watch the bats come out for dinner around dusk on a warm summer evening. One of the ideas that I keep procrastinating is putting up a few bat houses around the yard to encourage a bat population explosion. There’s plenty for them to eat!!
Thinking about songs because of another thread. Does anyone know of any positive songs about bats -our mosquito-loving friends?
Nana-nana-nana-nana Nana-nana-nana-nana Batman!
Hmmm. Bat songs … all I can think of is “Die Fleidermaus” stuff, but I’ll ponder that.
Small story … here in Kentucky we have many caves; I mean, they are EVERYWHERE. Anyhoo, one evening around sunset a friend and I were just finishing a walk thru the woods near Mammoth Cave and suddenly HUNDREDS of bats came spiralling up from one of the cave’s branch entrances. It was a veritable tornado of bats, just rising in an upward sort of vortex for probably three or four minutes total.
It was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen – the fact that these little guys are roosting way down in the dark but can still know when it’s sunset and time to go hunt.
And one other story … While visiting Ireland’s Dingle Peninsula and staying in an old hunting lodge, I woke to the sound of a “thwup-thwup-thwup.” I lay in the darkness, straining to see, and finally realized a bat had gotten into the room and was desperately trying to find his way out. I tried to wake my mom quietly so she wouldn’t leap up and have a heart attack or something, but she was snoring peacefully away … UNTIL, of course, I was perched on a chair with a towel spread out, trying to fool the bat and his radar into thinking the towel was a wall and thus gently “herd” him out the window (which was one of those narrow vertical slatted types, so we were working with a small opening). Anyway, Mom sits up, shouts “WHAT ARE YOU DOING???” and I promptly fall off the chair in a tangle of towel, nightgown, and hissed curses …
By dint of careful creeping and subtle towel-herding the pair of us finally got the little fellow shooed out, and needless to say, it was one of our best memories ever. And of course, we had great fun taking the p**s out of the hotel management about it the next day.
Meanwhile, bat houses … or hotels! … for everyone!
In Austin Texas, there’s a bridge in the middle of the city. Each night at dusk thousands (millions?) of bats emerge to feed. It has some amazing factoid like the largest swarm?, heard?, flock? of bats in the world. It’s a popular local attraction
I’ve always wanted to see that. I also remember a New Yorker article years ago that mentioned an amazing Bat Cave somewhere in Missouri …
Love bats, too. Have a few around our place in summer and always wondered where they are living. After seeing here that there are bat houses/boxes I had a look and came along this page in German, though. But lots of ideas of how to give them a home… http://www.schwegler-natur.de/Fledermaus/index.htm and also lots of ideas on birds houses. I have to do some shopping now 
Brigitte
The University of Florida in Gainesville has a bat house which holds something like 100,000 bats. At dusk, they all come out, taking about 15 minutes to empty out. There is usually a crowd of people present to watch it. I was there last November–very cool to see. Luckily, no guano incidents from the bats flying overhead!
Here’s a link with pictures of the house: