I ♥ Bats

  Townsend Big-Eared Bat (Photos Arizona Game and Fish azgfd.gov)

October is the month for scary creatures to appear, especially in the form of Halloween decorations.  Unfortunately, the poor bat gets a bad reputation as a blood-sucking fiend to be feared.  Arizona has 28 species of bats, little furry animals that eat tons of insects every night, especially mosquitoes.  The canal at 40th Street and Camelback is the home to about 5,000 Mexican Free-tail bats, who will be migrating to Mexico this month, returning in May.  They are soft, fuzzy little mammals (not rodents) with incredible abilities to find food using sonar (echolocation.)  Very few have rabies, but if one lets you near him, he is probably not healthy.   Bats do not attack people to suck blood, nor get stuck in your hair, though they may come close to get bugs attracted to the carbon dioxide you produce.  This award winning poster pictured above about bats is available free to AZ residents from AZ Game and Fish by contacting Sharon at svoiland@azgfd.gov Check out the info on AZ bats on the:  Bat Workshop Video  I love having bats around to eat those nasty mosquitoes.