A bit of female solidarity and a hygge attitude go a long way in the bat world
Cast aside all notions of vampires and haunted houses, bats on mat leave are all about getting cosy with their BFFs and looking after each other, and we’re just a little bit impressed by their initiative.
If you’ve ever sent a man out from under your feet because you just knew you’d get the job done quicker on your own, you might like to know that this is exactly what female bats do when it comes to giving birth.
During pregnancy, a few bat ladies get together and form a maternity colony. A bit like an antenatal group, but with small flying insects to eat instead of cake, but about the same amount of sympathising about pregnancy aches and pains. Mostly these colonies are made up of fewer than ten bats, but they can be huge; Bracken Cave in Mexico has a maternity colony of around 15 million bats!
Once a colony is formed, the bat babies (called pups) are born within a few weeks. (The male bats continue to stay out of things - we expect they’re at the pub, patting each other on the back for doing absolutely no hard work in all this at all). The female bats and young live together for the next few weeks to help each other out in the early days of parenthood. Bats usually only have one baby each, but they need to keep themselves warm in order to keep milk production going to feed their pups, so they all snuggle up together to benefit from each other’s warmth.
After four or five weeks the bats begin to venture out to find solid food for their pups and slowly begin to fly the roost. Who ever said a woman needed a man about the house?
The Bat Conservation Trust has lots of advice on what to do if you think you have bats roosting in your property. They say that female bats in maternity colonies are particularly sensitive and will abandon their pups if disturbed so if you’re doing work in your loft or roof during summer time, it’s especially important to check for bats first.
Bats are our ‘Magical Creature’ of the month in our October issue, so you can read more about them there. If you’ve ever admired the beautiful illustrations on our Magical Creatures series by Zuza Misko, you might like to know that you can buy them in our shop.
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