Between folklore and Hollywood, bats have gotten a bad rap for ages. The truth is, these cute and wonderful creatures are such an important part the ecosystem and are currently becoming or are endangered.

For starters, let’s clear up the common misbeliefs:

Bats are not blind. They comfortably move about at night using a combination of their vision and echolocation. Echolocation is a sophisticated sonar system that helps them catch even the tiniest mosquitos. Bats make high frequency sounds that bounce off objects in front of them so they can determine their distance.

Bats will not get caught in your hair. They maneuver quite well in the air and are prolly not interested in your hair anyway.

Bats don’t suck blood. Vampiric bats actually lap blood like dogs lap up water. They puncture the skin of a sleeping mammal and drink about two tablespoons of blood. There are only three species of vampire bat and they're all in Latin America. Other bats are busy catching and eating all sorts of night insects.

Worldwide, bats are natural enemies of many night-flying insects. A single little brown bat can catch twelve hundred mosquito-sized insects in one hour. They easily catch insects using their sight and echolocation, a system of high frequency sounds they make which bounce off the objects around them so they can judge the the location of how close or far they are. They are able to form pictures in their mind through these sounds, just like humans interpreting pictures from the light coming to our eyes. An entire colony of one hundred fifty brown bats can protect local farmers from up to 33 million or more rootworms each summer.

Bats are also vital to the rainforest, where, like bees, they help pollinate flowers and disperse seeds. Plants like bananas, breadfruit, mangoes, cashews, dates and figs rely on bats in tropical rain forest ecosystems. Even bats’ droppings in the caves they call home support whole ecosystems of unique organisms, including types of bacteria for detoxifying wastes, producing gasohol and antibiotics, and improving detergents.

Besides acting as an organic pest controller, bats produce an anticoagulant in their saliva that has been studied and synthesized for treating heart patients!

Of the 4,500 different species of mammals in the world, nearly 1,000 are bats, living on every continent except Antartica! Two-thirds of these species are insect-eaters; the remaining third feed on fruit, pollen and nectar. Only three species of bats consume blood.

These creatures are slow-producing mammals, birthing only one pup annually. Although bats live a very long time for mammals their size (over 30 years, which is equal to 100 human years), their populations are threatened by the loss of their homes and deliberate killing.