Halloween Countdown: B is for Bats

Did you know that a single creepy brown bat can catch 600 mosquitoes in one hour?

Or that a colony of 150 big brown bats can protect farmers from up to 18 million rootworms each summer?

And get this: The anticoagulant from VAMPIRE BAT saliva may soon be used to treat heart patients.

Turns out these shiver-inducing flying rodents are all kinds of beneficial. Pollinating agricultural plants - everything from bananas to cashews. Breaking down detoxifying wastes in cave ecosystems. Producing antibiotics...and tequila!

What's even worse, some of these creepy winged beasts are...cool. No, seriously.

Fishing bats have echolation so sophisticated that they can detect a minnow's fin as fine as a human hair protruding only two millimetres above a pond's surface. The world's smallest mammal is the bumblebee bat of Thailand, which weighs less than a penny. Tiny wooly bats of West Africa live in the large webs of colonial spiders. And vampire bats adopt orphans and have been known to risk their lives to share food with less-fortunate roostmates.

Yep. Look at me go. Turning fear into fascination...

*shudder*


A LITTLE HALLOWEEN POP CULTURE "B"

Fear this: Bats (yes, still)

Popular phobia: Bovinophobia (I guess some people could be scared of cows...)

Some spooky movies that begin with B: Bats: Human Harvest, Beetle Juice, Boogeyman, The Blob

A few Creeptastic "B" Authors: Sarah Bromley (catch her on the Crossroads Blog Tour 2013), Steve Berry, Dan Brown, Sandra Brown

Cross my fingers, no word of a lie, as I write this post, the bats in my forest-like backyard have been flying INTO my window, attracted to the light.

ONLY 28 SLEEPS!

- Dawn