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Table of Contents

Cover Story

Cover Story - Spanish Version

Mini-Lesson

Comprehension Quiz

Teacher's Guide and Worksheets

A Spooky Friend

The sun slips below the horizon. A brisk wind blows leaves around your feet. Suddenly a vampire bat swoops down to suck your blood!

O.K., catch your breath. Scary stories about the many species of bats have been around for centuries. In real life, bats hardly ever hurt people. The furry flying mammals are among nature's best environmentalists.

How Bats Help Us
Bats eat bugs. They help farmers by feasting on insect pests that ruin crops. The 20 million Mexican free-tailed bats that roost near San Antonio, Texas, gobble up 250 tons of insects every night! Bats also snack on flies and mosquitoes that can get in your food or ruin a backyard barbecue.

Bats are also the Johnny Cactus-seeds of the desert. They transfer pollen from cactus to cactus and spread the seeds around. Birds and other desert animals depend on cactus plants for food.

Bats Are Scared Of You!
Actually bats, not people, should be afraid. Today 20 species of bats are on, or may soon be on, the endangered-species list.

People who are afraid of bats have burned them out of caves or buried them inside mines or under city construction sites. "They think every bat is a vampire bat, and they kill all they can find," says Thomas Kunz, a Boston University biologist.

The good news is that some people are working hard to protect bats. A group called Bat Conservation International has built more than 100 iron gates to cover the fronts of caves and mine shafts. These gates let bats in but keep out people who would harm them.

Some of bats' best friends live in Austin, Texas. People there are proud of the 1 million bats that fly out from under the Congress Avenue bridge at sunset. The bats make up the largest bat colony in any city in the world.

So don't freak out if you happen to spot a bat. The scariest things about them are the tales people tell.

Did You Know?

• Bats can be as small as bumblebees (the Kitti's hog-nosed bat). But flying fox bats, which are as large as pigeons, have a wingspan of more than 5 feet.
• Bats were trained by the U.S. during World War II to carry small bombs. But they weren't reliable.
• Bats have flaps of skin and tissue around their nostrils. These "nose leaves" help them pick up echoes and find their way in the dark. This process is called echolocation.
• Bats are seen as good-luck symbols in China and Japan.
• Vampire bats feed on cows' blood. They will not attack humans unless annoyed. Most bats eat insects.

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