#3 Bats

Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog…
- Shakespeare, Macbeth

She and He
Depending on species, roosting males may vocalize demands for “outcall” service, never leaving their perch:

Hold your Bat Boy, Touch your Bat Boy
No more need to hide!
Know your Bat Boy, Love your Bat Boy
Don't deny your beast inside!
- Musical Cast, Bat Boy

Flyby “batgirls” stop and deliver. In other species, show-off males swarm in bat-out-of-hell flights of fancy reaching copulatory crescendo. Some unsportsmanlike males impregnate hibernating females in the hibernacula, or bat cave. Come on, Robin, to the Bat Cave! There's not a moment to lose! Great care is taken, however, as copulation, like defecation and birthing are performed upside down.

A bat is born naked and blind and pale.
His mother makes a pocket of her tail
and catches him…
- Randall Jarrell

The Royal Society’s journal, Proceedings B (22 March 2006) correlates female promiscuity with male morphology. In species with monogamous females, male brains were larger, but testes smaller; take Batman, for example, big on brains, short on mates (Robin?). But when libertine females dominate, male brains were smaller, testes larger. All balls, no brains; God compensates.

ID and Habitat
The world’s only flying mammals, bats have excellent night vision (no, they’re not flying Helen Kellers) and activate sophisticated sonar “echolocation” (a mental image created by reflected sound) in total darkness. These adaptations work: bats represent nearly 25% of all mammalian species (about 1,100 out of 4,500+/-), second only to rodents. Mostly insectivorous, bat populations slurp up trillions of bugs. With Lilliputian skeletons, they appear more human than even primates—except for gargantuan web-anchoring fingers and backwards-facing knees.

Dangers Real and Imagined
Folkloric vampires don’t exist. Blood sucking is limited to three Latin America species; only one feeds on mammals, usually cattle. While most reported cases of rabies are bat-related, a mere handful is referred annually to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Bats also carry SARS, possibly Ebola, and bite in your sleep. Bat teeth so sharp, incision so small and saliva so anti-coagulant, sleeping victims often remain unaware of their wounds.

Hot Tip
Dead or alive, don’t touch. Bats in your home or belfry? Get professional help. You never want bats where people, especially children, sleep; use window and door screens at night. Finally, if the famous “Bacardi Bat” label is on your bottle of rum, don’t mix drinking and driving.

RX
Use standard first aid, clean and sanitize. Immediately visit the ER; they will inject rabies immunity globulin around the bite. A full series of rabies shots may follow.
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Death Meter: 2 out of 10. Bites are rare, rabies is treatable.