Bats are found all around the world and there are hundreds of different species of bat, living

in caves
and forests, particularly in the Southern Hemisphere. The bumblebee bat found in the jungles of
Thailand, is the smallest mammal in the world and weighs less than a penny!

Bats hunt at night using their exceptional sight to pick out their prey, generally insects, frogs and small
rodents. The size of bat varies with the species, but some bats can have a wingspan of over 2 meters,
like the Indonesian giant flying fox! Smaller bat species can be as little as only 2 cm.

The Niah Caves in the Malaysian state of Sarawak, on the tropical island of Borneo, is particularly famous
for the sightings of thousands of bats. Oddly enough the enormous quantities of the bat's dung (known
as guano), is one of the things that draws so many people towards bats!

Some species of bat are known to fly at extreme heights, sometimes up to 2 miles above the ground!
The bat's senses are so fine tuned that it is thought that some bats can hear footsteps 6 miles away.

Bats have a slight sixth sense known as echolocation. This means that the bat creates a series of
supersonic sounds, which the bat then uses to locate prey by the sounds that are reflected back to
them.

Unlike most species of animal, bats are found in any environment around the world excluding the polar
regions. Despite what myths you may have heard, only three species of bat feed on animal blood and
they all live in the deep jungles of South America, not Transylvania.