possible spooky origin of bats

October 4, 2005

in austin, the congress avenue bridge has a huge population of bats which fly out at dusk

and of course there's carlsbad caverns in New mexico Jonnie Hellens Oct 4, 2005 3:45 PM Re: Re: possible "carnivore" origin of SARS

OK, I must have Peter and kitten too ingrained, cuz I sat and thought for a while how the poor bat could get caught in a kitten. It also might be cuz I'm always trying to do 12 things at once...

I saw an animal program once where they went to a town (I wish I knew which) that each evening at sunset during a certain season, the bats would come flying out of a cave. It was unbelievable, like something you would see in a scary movie. Thousands of shadows flying around, absolutely amazing!Peter <metalscarab wrote:

happen. But I did once see one get caught in a kitchen and panic. We had tothrow a towel over it to catch it before we could put it outside. Even whenit was panicking at being caught in a towel it didn't make any great effortto bite those of us who were "attacking" it!> But I do agree that I have never heard of a rabies case in humans> from them or any bites from bats on humans.It's a complete myth. In some countries where vampire bats are more common,the excuse for killing them is that they spread rabies... it's about as trueas the suggestion that badgers spread TB. There's never been a recorded caseof that happening. Very ocassionally a vampire bat will bite a sleepinghuman, but it's only if there's no other source of blood around... they muchprefer poultry and cattle. There's lots of intriguing things about vampirebats... like the fact that if they do bite, you can't feel it... but there'sno scientific reason for it. For a long time it was thought that there wassome sort of anaesthetic in their saliva, but there's not!!!BBPeter

Jonnie

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