BATS, FLYING, CHIROPTERA, FLYING FOX, MYOTIS, NIGHT OWLS, BUMBLE BEE BAT, GOLDEN CROWNED BAT

MAGICAL FLYERS?

Greetings to all you fine people out there!

How has everyone fared this past week? The weather has been very mild and pleasant here in this little part of the great big world and my family and I have been enjoying it very much. May all of you have had something pleasant happen in your lives this week as well. And can you believe we are in the last week of January? How times flies!

Speaking of flying…who out there are “night owls”, that is enjoy night viewing. It can be of the stars or keeping track of the lunar cycle, or watching for night animals. I have done it all at various times in my life. There is definitely a special place in my heart for the beauty of night. 

One of my favorite creatures of the night are bats. Have any of you really studied these incredible animals? They are so agile and silent and enormously fast! Even though I love to watch these animals in flight, it is their landing that is fascinating. Think about it, everything else that makes the air their domain lands upright. From delicate butterflies, moths

and dragon flies to the giant eagles and all other birds. Even the pterosaurs landed upright! 

Our manmade flighted machines also land upright. Jets, airplanes, helicopters, drones and  even hover crafts all have upright landings. But there is one animal that defies

everything and seems to “magically” land upside down. 

Bats. Yes those creatures that have often been associated with voodoo, evil concoctions, witches and warlocks are actually one of God’s most amazing animals. Every day, several times a day they

Kobayashi's bat found only in the Korean Peninsula 

preform their inverted roosting. Whether it be for a good day’s sleep or just a rest during their active night these creatures fly into caves, crevices, abandoned mines, buildings and even active barns and under porches. 

Recently, “A new study reported on ScienceDaily figured out how they perform this ‘aerobatic feat unlike anything else in the animal world’. First, the bats have to be built right. It’s ‘the extra mass in bats’ beefy wings that makes the maneuver possible.’ But that’s not enough. They need to nameplate the wings correctly. Using high-speed cameras to film trained bats, researchers found that the bats use inertia to their

The common bent-winged bat found throughout Europe and Russia

advantage. They retract their wings ever so slightly on approach, and rotate a half tern as they land. These little bats taught PhDs at Brown University a ‘counterintuitive’ principle about flight they didn’t know! Now, the students want to see if they can get it to work on flying robots.”¹ Now that would be interesting! 

The golden crowned flying fox bat

Macrobats are non-predatory animals. They can be larger and eat fruit or nectar. But they still roost upside down. All “bats’ legs project sideways and are amazingly designed for hanging. The bat has tendons in its feet that attach to its

Bumble bee bat from Brazilian rainforest

upper body, so that when it rests upside down, the bat’s weight pulls the toes naturally into a clenching position without the bat exerting any effort.The bat’s heart and blood vessels are designed to keep all its blood circulating rather than rushing to its head. You could even say that hanging upside down is a bat’s default position—where it is most at rest.”² 

Along with such incredible design the smaller predatory bats also have echolocation which is a

“high-pitched sound (usually inaudible to the human ear) and (bats) listen for the

echo as the sound waves bounce off objects. This amazing ability allows the bat to instantly ‘see’ exactly where objects

Brazilian spear nosed bat

are, in spite of the darkness. Humans have borrowed the principles of echolocation for use in submarines and other technology, but the bats’ abilities remain far superior to human imitations, a testimony to the genius of their Designer. Microbats use their echolocation not only to navigate, although that might have been the original purpose, but also to locate and nab insects. A single little brown bat can eat up to a thousand mosquitoes in one hour—so imagine what a colony of these flying mammals can do! Many people put bat houses in their yards for this very reason.”

All these designs would have had to “evolve” the same time

Flying fox of India

in order to make the bat a fully functional, fast, precision predator or fruit/nectar eater. The probability of that happening goes beyond  chance to impossible. 

However, an intelligent designer, on the other hand, would have no problem creating such a “magical”, amazing creature!

Until next time, God bless and try to get out and see some of these uniquely designed creature!

Willow Dressel

References:

¹Coppedge, David F., Speaking of Science. Creation Matters, Vol 20 Number 6, November/December 2015. Creation Research Society, 2015.pp 9.

²https://answersingenesis.org/mammals/flying-foxes/