Mini mammals in big trouble

With some of our bat species declining by 90%, it’s high time we appreciated these little fascinating creatures

- LINDSAY WADDELL

It’s that time of year; those long, balmy summer evenings — well some of the time, anyway — and with them, as dusk settles in, comes the sight of bats flitting around the trees, over the water or round the house.

It’s a sight with a very long timeline as there is evidence of bats from more than 50 million years ago; rather longer than we’ve been around. It came as a surprise to me to find out that, as a species, they make up around 20 % of all the mammals in the world, and more than a quarter of mammal species in the UK.

Worldwide, bats eat, or live on, quite a variety of foodstuffs from fruit to nectar on the one hand to insects and blood on the other. There are some species of plants whose only pollinator are bats and that is quite a specialised, if not a little risky, way to exist.

Back to these shores, though, and it is hard to believe in these times, when it’s so many years since we made it to the moon, that we discovered a new species of bat in this country in 2010. The alcothoe bat is closely related to the whiskered and Brandt’s bat, but it is remarkable to think it had never been identified in this country before.

As with some other species, common does not mean it is just that — the common pipistrelle is not the most common we have here. It’s relative. The soprano pipistrelle is our most numerous and even that was not identified as an individual species until the 1990s. The soprano, as you might expect, has a very high frequency echolocation call and it is one that those of us with very good hearing can pick up at times.