Often the bat is depicted in horrible vampire stories and in general we tend to see even a public fear of the creature called the bat. But often these scary looking nocturnal creatures are just misunderstood or misrepresented. You don’t really have to worry about them getting stuck in your hair and sucking your blood.
But actually if you dig a little deeper you find out that bats are extremely vital to our environment. They make sure that the insect population is kept in check, eating up hundreds of mosquitoes or other pesky flies. And also bats actually pollinate some plant species, in fact for some plants they are the only pollinator. This is how bats are actually the main ingredient of creating tequila, without them, you would not have one of your favorite alcoholic beverages. They also inhabit every region of the Earth, making then pretty essential!
Bats that feed off nectar are your main pollinator bats and there are 300 species of fruit that can only be pollinated by bats! They don’t pollinate the same plants as bees so this becomes a way for our natural ecosystem to survive.
One of the big plants that rely entirely on bats to survive is the cacti plants, for example, the agave plant found in Mexico which is the main ingredient for tequila. This agave plant can only be pollinated by a nectar-feeding bat. So without them, you would have no tequila! Maybe think about that next time you see one flying around your garden at night. Or if you are on holiday sipping your favorite margarita maybe just tip your hat off to the bats.
Remember that bats are not trying to swoop down and attack you, this is a common mistake humans make. Bats use echolocation to navigate around so they can find food in the dark, actually, when they swoop towards you they are searching for insects that fly close to us. Technically speaking raccoons and skunks are more of a threat to us than bats!
