Fact Sheet No 3: BATS IN THE CAVES
Bats are miniature dinosaurs, and have lived in caves for 25 million
years. If you are lucky you may see some in our caves. Like Count
Dracula, they never come out in daylight!
They do have sharp teeth, but there are no vampire bats in Britain.
They are quite harmless, and fun to watch. Bats like to spend all
day sleeping in groups in warm, dark places, hanging upside down
from ledges by their claws. (Sometimes they fall off!) You can
often track down a "colony" of sleeping bats by watching for the
droppings on the ground below. At dusk they wake up and fly out to
hunt for all kinds of insects, their only food, which they eat while
flying.
At Cheddar we have Greater and Lesser Horseshoe Bats, which have
nostrils shaped like horse shoes. All bats have big ears to pick up
faint sounds, some of which are too high-pitched for us to hear.
While flying, a bat keeps "whistling in the dark", and the
reflection of its own high-pitched sounds off nearby objects acts as
a sonar to stop the bat crashing. Unlike other bats, the Horseshoe
Bat whistles through its special horseshoe-shaped nose. There are
also Long-eared Bats living in rock crevices in the Gorge.
Our bats have very small heads and bodies, but much larger wings,
with a span of up to 30cm. Their arms, legs and claws are all part
of the wing. These big, well-muscled wings help them change
direction easily, and are used like a cloak to wrap up the bat while
sleeping.
Bats can live for over 18 years. They can mate in the spring or
autumn, and each female has one baby each July. The colony
hibernates for the winter, but bats still have to eat at regular
intervals. Eating and keeping warm are a bat's main problems.
Their fur and wings help keep them warm when sleeping, but they can
also select their own body temperature! By slowing down their heart
rate they can choose to become "cold blooded", so while hibernating
they can save the energy they would have needed to stay "warm
blooded" and active. A "cold blooded" bat does not feel the cold.
Bats also store body fat for energy, and huddle together for warmth.
Our colony of about 80 Horseshoe bats nests in the roof crevices of
the Diamond Chamber in Gough's Cave. Bats are an endangered
species, as their favourite foods and resting places are often
destroyed. There are heavy legal penalties for harming or even
disturbing any bat, unless you are a "registered bat handler".
A part of the Cheddar Caves & Gorge Discovery Pack - Copyright 2001 Cheddar Caves & Gorge