Bats | Chiroptera

Families in this order

• Sheath-tailed bats | Emballonuridae1 speciesIn these bats the tail pierces the upper surface of the tail membrane and projects free through it, after which it can slide to and fro as though in a sheath: when the animal stretches its legs the membrane draws taut, when it pulls them up the membrane folds back. The face is smooth, without a noseleaf, and the eyes are large for a bat — sight counts here. The wings are long and narrow and the flight fast and straight, high over open ground. They roost not tucked away but in light places: cave mouths, ruins, tombs and buildings, each at a distance from its neighbours, and they move sideways along the wall clambering on their wrists. In many species a gland pouch lies in the wing membrane of the arm or beneath the throat, with which males spread their scent. The only species in this area is a robust bat with a naked belly and rump.
• Bent-winged bats | Miniopteridae3 speciesThe family is named for the wing: the outer joint of the third finger is extraordinarily long and folds back double at rest, so that the wingtip is stowed along the arm. Spread out, this gives a very long narrow wing and a fast, high flight with sharp turns, more like a swift than an ordinary bat. The fur is short, dense and velvety and the forehead strikingly high and domed. They are cave animals all year round and hang in dense clusters, touching one another, sometimes thousands strong; between the summer colony and the winter quarters they cover hundreds of kilometres, which makes them Europe's most migratory bats. Reproduction has a solution of its own: mating in autumn is followed at once by fertilisation, but the embryo's growth is halted through the winter and only resumes in spring, so that all the young are born within days of one another.
• Free-tailed bats | Molossidae1 speciesThe rear half of the tail projects free beyond the tail membrane — hence the name. The wings are the narrowest and most pointed of any bat and are folded away at rest under a leathery flap along the flank. That wing shape gives a very fast but scarcely manoeuvrable flight: they hunt high in the open air, above ridges, cliffs and lit towns, and not among vegetation. The call is matched to it — low in pitch, carrying far, and so low that a human can hear it as a hard ticking. The muzzle is broad and blunt with a wrinkled upper lip, the ears are thick, set forward and joined across the forehead, and the short strong legs carry bristles. They roost in rock clefts and building joints; to take off they first drop clear. Europe has one species, a large bat of southern cliffs.
• Vesper bats | Vespertilionidae42 speciesBy far the largest and least specialised family of bats: a smooth face with no noseleaf, a tragus in the ear, and a tail wholly enclosed in the tail membrane, whose tip is curled forward in the hunt into a scoop in which an insect is caught. The call goes out through the open mouth and consists of short pulses sweeping from high to low. Wing shape follows the manner of hunting: broad and rounded in species that pick prey off a surface among leaves and over water, long and narrow in those that fly high in open air. Mating takes place in autumn, but the sperm is stored over winter in the female's body and fertilisation follows only in spring, when the insects begin to appear. One young is born, rarely two. With forty-two species this is the largest mammal family in the area, and several of them can be separated in the field only by their calls.
• Fruit bats | Pteropodidae1 speciesLarge bats that must live by their eyes and their nose: the eyeball is big, the muzzle long as a dog's, and fruit and blossom are found by sight and smell. Of the whole family only the genus to which the European species belongs also steers by echo, and that call is not made in the larynx but clicked with the tongue against the palate — precise enough to allow roosting deep inside dark caves, which most of its relatives cannot do. The ear rim forms an unbroken ring and there is no tragus; besides the thumb, the second finger also bears a claw. The cheekteeth are broad and blunt: the pulp is pressed out, the juice swallowed and the fibre spat out as a pellet. Neither hibernation nor torpor occurs, and insects are not eaten. Within the area of this guide one species lives in large cave colonies in the eastern Mediterranean.
• Old World leaf-nosed bats | Hipposideridae1 speciesRelated to the horseshoe bats and working the same way — the call goes out through the nose and is focused by a fleshy noseleaf — but the leaf is built differently: broad and squared or notched along the top, without the erect lancet of the horseshoe bats. Here too each toe carries two joints instead of three, which makes the foot a simple hook from which the animal hangs without effort. The wings are short and broad and the flight is slow and fluttering, with brief glides, suited to searching among bushes and boulders for settled and low-flying insects. The call is a short note of constant pitch with a downward sweep at the end. They roost hanging free in caves, wells and ruins, each at some distance from its neighbour. The only species in the area is a pale desert bat of the south-eastern edge.
• Horseshoe bats | Rhinolophidae6 speciesBats that utter their call not through the mouth but through the nostrils and aim it with a noseleaf in three parts: a horseshoe-shaped fold around the nostrils, an upright pointed lancet above it and a saddle-shaped piece between. The ears are large, pointed and without a tragus, and move independently and very fast. The call is a long note of almost constant pitch; in the returning echo the animal hears an insect's wingbeat as a flutter. To keep that echo within the narrow band its ear is tuned to, the bat lowers the pitch of its own call in flight as it closes on its prey. The wings are broad and rounded, the flight slow, low and manoeuvrable. The hind legs are so one-sidedly built for hanging that walking is impossible; at rest they hang free and wrap the wings entirely round the body like a cloak — no other European bat does this.
• Mouse-tailed bats | Rhinopomatidae2 speciesBats with a tail nearly as long as the body, trailing free behind the animal: the tail membrane is reduced to a narrow rim and leaves most of the tail outside it. The nostrils are slit-shaped and can be closed against blowing sand, and above the muzzle stands a small rounded noseleaf. The ears are large and joined across the forehead. The wings are broad and the flight slow and undulating, low over open desert and along oases. They roost in caves, wells, ruins and tomb chambers, often in loose groups. What is unusual is how they deal with the season: in the good months they lay down large fat stores in the abdomen, on which they pass weeks at a time in torpor through the cool or dry season — an uncommon solution for a bat of hot country.