{"id":3415,"date":"2022-11-09T14:54:01","date_gmt":"2022-11-09T19:54:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pestqueen.com\/?p=3415"},"modified":"2022-11-09T14:54:05","modified_gmt":"2022-11-09T19:54:05","slug":"how-many-mosquitoes-do-bats-eat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pestqueen.com\/how-many-mosquitoes-do-bats-eat\/","title":{"rendered":"How Many Mosquitoes Do Bats Eat?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Do you have bats in your belfry? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although they get a bad rap due to their inclusion in so many creepy horror films, bats are actually quite gentle creatures that also act as nature\u2019s very own pest control \u2014 against mosquitoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s because bats eat mosquitoes, but the amount of them that they can chow down on in one night may just surprise you. So, how many mosquitoes do bats eat<\/strong>? A bat can chomp through about 1,000 mosquitoes per hour, and devour over 1\/3 their body weight in ‘skeeters each night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’ll explain below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

How Many Mosquitoes Do Bats Eat?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Bats can eat up over 1\/3 of their body weight in mosquitoes in one night! Bats are among the lightest creatures around, weighing around 0.5oz. So a bat might eat 0.15oz of mosquitoes each night. This translates to thousands of mosquitoes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So a bat might eat 0.15oz of mosquitoes each night. This translates to many thousands of mosquitoes!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bats are some of the most understood creatures that live on the planet. And probably a lot of that is down to any vampire films that you\u2019ve watched, which depict them as bloodsucking beasts that get trapped in your hair and give you diseases if they bite you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those are actually<\/em> the mosquitoes and bed bugs we keep writing about<\/a>, not bats (most of the time)!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But all of these characteristics are everything that bats are definitely not. In fact, bats are mammals, not rodents, and they are very intelligent insect predators, mainly feeding off of annoying mosquitoes, moths, and other flying insects \u2014 definitely not human flesh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bats are mammals, not rodents, and they are very intelligent insect predators, mainly feeding off of annoying mosquitoes, moths, and other flying insects \u2014 definitely not human flesh.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

These aviator mammals (bats are the only species of mammal that do fly!) have extraordinary flying skills, they also have incredible vision (they\u2019re definitely not blind!), and use echolocation, so that they can hear and pinpoint mosquitoes to eat while speedily zooming their way through the air when it’s dark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike pesky female mosquitoes that do <\/em>act like miniature vampires always ready to bite into your flesh and blood, bats don\u2019t suck blood from humans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So again, all of those horror movies you\u2019ve been watching are complete fairy tales when it comes to telling the real story of these interesting creatures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are more than 1,400 bat species found worldwide, and only three of these, which are found in tropical Central and South America, draw blood from cattle, not people. There are also some species that only feed on plant nectar and pollinate plants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

If You Love Tequila, You Should Love Bats Too<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In fact, if you love drinking tequila, then you might be surprised to find out that if it wasn\u2019t for bats, you wouldn\u2019t be able to enjoy your Margharita or shots. That\u2019s because Mexico\u2019s tequila industry is reliant on the local bats to pollinate the flowers of the agave plants used to make this alcoholic drink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pollinating bats are also responsible for the cultivation of crops like cashews, bananas, peaches, mangoes, almonds, sugar, avocados, and cacao. So if you\u2019re a fan of any of these foods, you have bats to thank for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides these few outlier species though, this means that the majority of bats are insectivores, and they get their main sustenance from eating mosquitoes. So, the annoying and disease-carrying pests that we all love to hate are a bat’s primary food source.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact that mosquitoes are a real problem for humans, because of the diseases that they carry \u2014 like West Nile virus, dengue fever, and malaria \u2014 along with the fact that they are a major food source for bats, may just make you want to fall in love with these amazing nocturnal mammals, or at least take a bit more interest in them because of what they do for our natural ecosystems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact that mosquitoes are a real problem for humans, because of the diseases that they carry \u2014 like West Nile virus, dengue fever, and malaria \u2014 along with the fact that they are a major food source for bats, may just make you want to fall in love with these amazing nocturnal mammals, or at least take a bit more interest in them b<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ecause of what they do for our natural ecosystems.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

How Many Mosquitoes Can a Bat Eat Per Hour? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

You will probably be surprised to find out that a single large bat is able to eat up to 1,000 mosquitoes in just one hour, which is quite a mean feat and what makes them one of nature\u2019s best natural pest control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As mentioned aboce, on average, most bats will consume at least one-third of their entire body weight in mosquitoes in just one night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In many low income tropical countries, for instance, bats help to control the spread of mosquito-borne diseases like malaria and dengue fever by feeding on mosquitoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This also works in minimizing the need of farmers and other authorities to use dangerous chemical pesticides to combat disease-carrying mosquito populations, which helps to save the health of both the people and their surrounding environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Night Workers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s probably safe to say that if you had a fear of bats when you started reading this article, if you\u2019ve read this far, then you probably have a better understanding and curiosity about these creatures. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because they are definitely not threatening to humans \u2014 as long as you leave them alone and don\u2019t provoke an attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of the fact that they spend their days in caves, and only come out at night to feed on mosquitoes and other insects, then the potential of you coming face to face with one is really pretty rare. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And they definitely won\u2019t attack your hair, so you can let go of that worry!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do you have bats in your belfry? Although they get a bad rap due to their inclusion in so many creepy horror films, bats are actually quite gentle creatures that also act as nature\u2019s very own pest control \u2014 against mosquitoes. That\u2019s because bats eat mosquitoes, but the amount of them that they can chow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3418,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pestqueen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3415"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pestqueen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pestqueen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pestqueen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pestqueen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3415"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pestqueen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3422,"href":"https:\/\/pestqueen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3415\/revisions\/3422"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pestqueen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pestqueen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pestqueen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pestqueen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}