Several kinds of mammals can glide through the air for short distances, but bats are the only mammals that can truly fly. Their wings are made of skin stretched tightly between the long fingers of their hands and their ankles.
Bats make up almost a quarter of all species of mammals in the world today. There are two main groups of bats: one is the flying fox family and the second contains all other bat families. The flying foxes have foxlike heads, and feed mostly on plant material, including fruits, flowers, nectar and pollen. They use their large eyes and keen sense of smell to find their food.
Most members of the second group of bats are carnivores, feeding on insects, small mammals, frogs, birds and even fish. These bats generally hunt at night, using echo-location to find their prey. They produce very high-pitched squeaking sounds through their noses or mouths, and then use their large ears to listen to the echoes that bounce back. The bats are then able to build up a picture of their surroundings so that they can fly at top speed and catch insects in flight even in pitch darkness.
Bats usually hunt at night and rest during the day, hanging upside down in caves, hollow trees or even buildings. Some kinds of bats roost singly while others will gather together in their thousands. Many female bats will roost together in “nursery” colonies where they leave their babies clustering together for warmth while they go out to hunt.
The insectivores are a group of small mammals that includes hedgehogs, moles and shrews, as well as some lesser-known animals such as tenrecs and the rare solenodons. Many insectivores are nocturnal, emerging at night to feed. They have long snouts and a very keen sense of smell which they use to find their prey. Most insectivores eat insects, worms and other tiny creatures, but some shrews are able to kill quite large prey such as frogs.
Some insectivores feed and nest on the surface of the ground, while others, especially moles, live in burrows underground. Otter shrews, which belong to the tenrec family, spend much of their time in water, just like real otters. To defend themselves, hedgehogs and some tenrecs have spines while moles and shrews have foul-tasting skin.
Larger animals such as pangolins and aardvarks are also insect-eaters. They feed from ant or termite nests, shooting their long, sticky tongues in and out to pick up many insects at once. Some pangolins can eat up to 200,000 ants in one night.
Both aardvarks and pangolins are solitary, nocturnal animals. They use their keen sense of smell to locate good sources of food. They have strong front claws, used for breaking open insect nests, as well as for burrowing (the aardvark) or climbing trees (the pangolin). If threatened, the pangolin will curl up into a ball so that its scales shield it from harm. The aardvark will dig itself into a burrow at top speed.
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