Bats

About 100 miles northwest of Mexico City in the UNESCO-designated Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, up to a billion of the brilliant-winged insects spend November to March clustered on branches.

A Ring of Fire, Millions of Monarchs and Other Rare Natural Phenomena Worth Traveling For

Be in the right place at the right time to witness these sublime sights

The bats were kept inside when temperatures dropped below freezing but were released back to their homes in late December.

Texas Woman Rescues 1,500 Hypothermic Bats During Cold Snap

The Houston Humane Society wildlife center director nursed the animals to health in her attic

Pollinators, including bees, are suffering because of human activities.

Shrinking Pollinator Populations Could Be Killing 427,000 People Per Year

New research explores the relationship between human health and crop loss due to pollination deficits around the world

The northern long-eared bat was listed as threatened in 2015. It will officially be reclassified as endangered in January 2023. 

Decimated by Fungus, the Northern Long-Eared Bat Is Now Endangered

A disease called white-nose syndrome has killed millions of bats in North America

A frog-eating bat

Wild Bats Can Recognize a Phone’s Ringtone Four Years Later

The findings could help researchers understand more about the advantages and disadvantages of long-term memory in animals

A greater horseshoe bat can use echolocation to target an insect meal.

Five Amazing Adaptations That Help Animals Thrive in the Dark

From snakes that use infrared radiation to find prey to deep sea fishes that communicate via bioluminescence, these creatures flourish without light

Big brown bats Eptesicus fuscus (pictured) are a Yangochiroptera species that uses complex sounds to echolocate. 

A Tiny, Partially Missing Bone Structure in Bat Ears May Have Cleared the Way for Echolocation to Evolve

Nearly 90 percent of the nighttime hunters use sound to find prey

New Zealand's long-tailed bats are about the size of a human thumb and weigh less than a tablespoon of sugar.

New Zealand's Bird of the Year Is... a Bat

The winged mammal is critically endangered and won the award to raise awareness about their existence and importance to the island ecosystem

A researcher holds a banded vampire bat.

Vampire Bats Call Out to Friends to Share Blood Meals

After they prep bite sites to lap the blood out of live cows, females invite their roostmates to join them

A thermal image shows a parrot releasing heat through its beak and talons. Researchers have found that since 1871 some parrots have increased their beak area up to 10 percent.

Animals Are Changing Shape to Cope With Rising Temperatures

Birds, bats, rabbits, mice and other creatures are growing bigger body parts to cool themselves off

Mother and pup of the bat species Saccopteryx bilineata. Similar to human infants, pups begin babbling at a young age as they develop language skills.

Baby Bats Babble—Just Like Human Infants

Both species make similar sounds as they develop language skills at an early age

Bats, whales, naked mole rats, elephants, albatrosses, certain dog breeds and a few other animals live unexpectedly long lives. Can scientists discover their secrets?

Why Scientists Are Studying the Genetic Tricks of the Longest-Lived Animals

Researchers are investigating how some species live unexpectedly long lives in order to pinpoint factors affecting human longevity.

Foster mother, BD, feeds her adopted vampire bat pup in a captive bat colony at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Gamboa, Panama.

Smithsonian Voices

Baby Vampire Bat Adopted by Mom's Best Friend

The strong relationship formed between two female adult vampire bats may have motivated one of the bats to adopt the other’s baby

Myotis nimbaenis was named for the Nimba Mountains where it was found.

New Research

Newly Discovered Bat Species Has Halloween Colors

The six-ounce bat lives in abandoned mine shafts in Guinea's Nimba Mountains

A male wrinkle-faced bat (Centurio senex) seen dangling from his perch. Beneath his chin is a furry skin fold that he pulls up to cover the lower half of the face like a mask during courtship.

New Research

These Bats Mask Up to Woo Mates

Male wrinkle-faced bats use a furry neck flap to cover their faces while serenading the opposite sex in never-before-seen behavior

From leaf-engineering to complex social circles, there’s more to bats than flying and echolocation.

Smithsonian Voices

Five Reasons to Love Bats

Make Halloween the reason to learn to love and conserve these misunderstood mammals

Researchers from the Smithsonian's Global Health Program found six new coronaviruses in bats in Myanmar.

Smithsonian Scientists Discover Six New Coronaviruses in Bats in Myanmar

The new viruses are not harmful to humans or closely related to SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19

Pallid bats use relatively low-pitched sounds for echolocation, making them better at hunting in open spaces like grasslands.

New Research

California Bats Thrive in Forests Recovering From Wildfires

Wildfires leave behind a patchwork of forest densities that can give bats more room to fly and hunt

A Jamaican fruit bat (Artibeus jamaicensis), one of the species that contributed to the guano researchers used to study the climates of the past.

Ancient Bat Guano Reveals Thousands of Years of Human Impact on the Environment

Like sediment cores, ice samples and tree rings, bat excrement can be used to study the climate of the past

A sign reading "No Entrance!" is seen at the burned-out monkey house of the zoo in Krefeld, western Germany, on January 1, 2020.

More Than 30 Animals, Among Them 'Highly Endangered' Species, Killed in Fire at German Zoo

Authorities say the blaze was likely started by floating lanterns illegally released into the sky on New Year's Eve

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