Life Lessons You Can Get from The Bats
There are around 1,200 species of bats, and only three of them actually drink blood, and they don't even drink human's blood, only other animals. Bats have been the subjects of myths and misinformation for centuries, becoming the inspiration for the famous story of the blood drinking man, the Dracula.
There's no reason to be scared of bats actually, since they never bother us directly except when they take advantage of small holes in our roof or attic and decide to sleep there during the day. There are several signs you can spot to tell whether bats are living in your roof or attic or not.
First is the smell, since accumulated bat waste will produce the ammonia odors. Second sign is fecal droppings on the beneath of their entry hole to the house. Another sign is discoloration near their entry hole, the color would be dark brown and oily. Another sign you can spot with your ears, bats will usually make scratching and scraping sounds.
But aside from that, bats are pretty harmless and never try to attack humans in any way. In fact, bats can really teach us about life and how to navigate it as well as they do with their echolocation. Here are some life lessons you can get from the bats.
Help Others and Yourself
Bats are one of the most plentiful mammals in North America and represent around 20% of all species of mammals in the world. Because they are nocturnal, most of us don't realize that the bats are helping us every day.
Bats are doing important work that are helping our ecosystem and even our economy. The first thing they do to help us is eat the insects, if it wasn't for bats, humans might have to use even more toxic pesticides to protect our crops and food.
Pests can cost us billions of dollars in damaging agricultural crops but the bats are helping us minimize that cost. Not only that, bats are known to eat mosquitoes which are known to be carriers of diseases and since a bat can eat up to 1,200 mosquitoes in an our, they are helping us greatly. Not only that, if not because of bats, we are probably struggling to fight West Nile virus that can be spread by mosquitoes.
A pregnant or lactating bat can even consume more mosquitoes and insects, as much as its weight every night. Bats are not only helping humans by eating mosquitoes, but also pests that can damage crops like stink bugs, leafhoppers, and June beetles.
Not only playing their part in protecting us from disease and our crops from pests, the bats are also known for their work of pollinating plants. There's a saying that bees and birds are taking the day shift in pollination, while the bats work on the night shift.
Around 500 kinds of tropical plants are relying on bats for the process of pollination. Those tropical plants include the most known fruit for humans like bananas, figs, sugar cane, mangoes, peaches, almonds, cocoa to make chocolate, and even agave that used to make tequila.
Bats are here to protect the environment. Bats are having an important role in keeping our jungles filled with trees and plants since after they ate fruits, they will excrete seeds along the way and they are helping with reforestation in areas that have been fragmented or cleared.
So what can we learn from those things that bats do? One of the life lessons you can get from the bats is the benefits of helping. You can do both helping yourself and helping others because both are not mutually exclusive activities. Bats are helping themselves and others in order to survive, so can you.
Helping others like volunteering is not only good for the people you help, but also good for you. Research has shown that the act of helping others has a lot of benefits like increasing your self-confidence, enhanced immune system, lowering your stress level by lowering cortisol, the stress hormone, and releasing oxytocin which is known as the compassion hormone.
Helping others is giving you the possibility of a longer life since it will prolong your life, especially by reducing the risk of heart attack. Helping is also good for your mental health since helping could release the 'helper's high' which will increase your mood, and then protect you from mild to moderate depression.
When you decide to go volunteering to help other people who are less fortunate, do it because you are motivated to show compassion to other people. You are not going to get any physical reward like money, but the reward you will get is not visible but just as sweet.
Collaborate with Others but Know When to Do It
Bats live in groups, they live together, raise their pups together and hunt together, that's why bats are the masters of collaboration. The numbers of individuals living in a bat colony is greatly varied, from just a few bats to thousands of them.
In fact, bats are so used to being with other bats that when you pick one and isolate it from its colony, the lone bat will get confused and lost. Most bats like to live in locations that are dark, dry and hot. But other bat species will also live in old dead trees, palm fronds, and of course caves.
Bats find it the best way to survive and do things effectively is by always working together. Humans find it very differently since we know that working with others is not always effective. One of the life lessons you can get from the bats is knowing when to use the group and if you can, do things alone when the group is not effective and just wasting your time and energy.
When you are in charge of assigning work to groups of people, you need to consider a couple of things that will make it more effective. The first one is that the task is complex and needs to be broken down into smaller tasks and you can assign them to various members of the group.
Second, you need to make sure that the group is highly motivated and therefore will be able to find the best solution to solve the problem or issue, especially issues that will have serious implications like jobs or even possible loss of life.
So, learning from the bats, remember these tips when you are facing problems with the need of working with other people. The bats take advantage of the power of collaboration, and you can do that too when the circumstances are right.
The Value of Feedback
The bats are famously known for their echolocation, so even though they are only active during the night, they always know exactly where they are. Bats will emit ultrasonic screeches with their mouth and nose that will bounce off objects and potential prey.
Not only will they know exactly where they are and where their preys are, with echolocation the bats can also predict where their prey will go. When working and living together, bats take turns on being quiet so they can listen to what their leaders are saying. This is certainly one of a great life lessons you can get from the bats.
Try to imagine echolocation of bats as the process of feedback-seeking. Bats will emit their sound which will generate feedback from their surroundings, letting them know where exactly they are and the precise location of their prey.
To thrive and try to achieve your goals, harnessing the power of feedback can really help you. In work settings for example, young and new employees will be able to grow when they actively ask for feedback from their superiors and colleagues and take those feedback seriously.
But not only in a professional setting, you should also use the benefits of feedback in your personal life. Seeking and valuing feedback can reduce uncertainty, and improve your performance and skills. You might be reluctant to actively ask for feedback, but doing this can enhance your perceptions and understanding about yourself and how you work.
Bat Myths
Like said above, bats are the victims of misinformation and myths for centuries. One of those myths is that bats will viciously attack humans, which is completely untrue. Bats are smart and shy and want to be left alone. If you go to a cave full of bats, you will see them flying around you but never actually touch you. Bats only bite in self-defense like when some people catch them. If you don't disturb them, they won't disturb you.
Another myth that so many people believe is that bats will randomly swoop in and get tangled in your hair, especially women with long hair. There's no reason for bats to just fly into human's hair, when they accidentally do that, it's because they are trying to eat mosquitoes that are flying near your head.
Bats are also seen by a lot of people as filthy animals, which isn't true. Just like most mammals, bats are spending a lot of their time grooming their hair in order to maintain the silky texture. Bats are also called flying mice which is completely untrue biologically, since bats are closer to primates than to mice.
The fictional character vampire is known to almost the entire world, with some civilizations even having their own version of vampire. Vampire bats, the inspiration of this folklore, don't actually drink human blood, so you don't have to worry. Vampire bats will only drink blood from cattle or birds, and they don't even drink much, only spoonful sized meals.
Another famous myth about the bats is that bats are blind and only use echolocation to see. That's not true, most bats have vision that is almost as good as humans. Some species of bats can even see well in places with lowlights, and they also can see in colors.
Facts About Bats
While a lot of people think bats are filthy, scary and associate them with bad luck, in Spanish and Cuban folklore, bats represent the opposite. To them, bats are the symbols of good fortune, unity of family, and even good health.
Considering their small size, bats can live a long life 5-30 years, depending on the species. Vampire bats have strong family bonds within their group. If a mother vampire bat dies, another female will adopt the orphan, this is the only type of bat that is known to do this.
Vampire bats can only live two days without their meals, so they also share their blood meals among the members of the colony with regurgitation. And while a lot of people think that bats are carriers of disease, less than 0.5% of bats have rabies.
Summary
Bats are giving a lot of benefits to humans that most of us don't even realize. They consume insects to protect us and our crops, they also pollinate the plants to help the process of reforestation. Follow the bats example of helping others and you will enjoy so many benefits for yourself both physically and mentally.
Bats know the importance of groups, they live, work and raise their young together. But they also know when to work alone like hunting preys. Take a lesson from the bat by knowing when to use the group to work together, and also know when to do things alone.
The life lessons you can get from the bats besides helping others and knowing when to use the groups is the power of feedback. By seeking feedback from your surroundings, you could use it to help you in achieving your goals.
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