Bats

There are two types of bats; mega bats and microbats. In the Mallee CMA region, we only have microbats which average around seven centimeters in size, and there are 14 different species. These small bats live in our wetlands, backyards, parks and in the bush but are rarely noticed as they only come out at night and make a noise that human ears can’t hear.

The bat species within our region are insectivorous, meaning that they eat insects and can devour up to 500 insects in an hour! They are nocturnal (active at night), spending their days sleeping in dark cool hollows of trees.

How do bats see to fly at night? Bat use echolocation, not sight, to fly and hunt for insects. Echolocation is a specialised way of using sound to create a 3D acoustical image to navigate. We can record the microbat’s echolocation sound and by creating a graph from the sound tell what species are around as each species has its own unique shape on the graph.

If you think you might have microbats in your yard and would like to record them, contact us to borrow an anabat, as pictured below.