Debunking the Bat’s Bad Rap

Creatures of the Night

Long before Edward and Bella—or Lestat and Louis, for you old folks—were nibbling on one another’s necks, vampires have been enchanting the public with their universal immortal appeal. Vampire folklore reaches back millennia, populating myths across Mesopotamian and Hebrew as well as ancient Greek and Roman culture with demonic entities and blood-sucking spirits. Likewise, bats, as creatures of the night, had long been associated with witchcraft in European tradition.

But it wasn’t until Bram Stoker published Dracula, in 1897, that bats were linked to vampires for the first time—a connection forever cemented by the iconic 1931 film starring Bela Lugosi. The one-two media punch of a best-selling book followed by a popular film simultaneously increased the world’s fascination with vampires and fed powerful misconceptions about their animal familiars.   

No Reason for Fright 

In reality, there are about 1,200 species of bat—about 20% of all the mammals on the planet—and only three of them actually drink blood. In general, bats are docile creatures that are an important part of the ecosystems that support them. Around 70% are insectivores; the other 30% are frugivorous. All of the 18 bat species native to Colorado are insect eaters; one species, the little brown bat, can catch and eat up to 10 mosquitos in less than a minute! To recap: bats are actually ridding your world of blood-suckers.  

Bats at Denver Zoo

If you’ve never visited Denver Zoo’s bat caves, you’ll find them near the entrance to Tropical Discovery. We house three species within our two caves, most of which are Seba’s short-tailed bats. Weighing in at a little over an ounce, these tiny mammals are native Central and South America. Like all frugivores, Seba’s short-tailed bats play an important role in their native ecosystems as pollinators and seed dispersers—ingesting thousands of fruit seeds each night, and spreading them throughout the forest.  

Seba’s short-tailed bats are a social species, usually roosting in caves or hollow trees in groups of 10–100. In fact, Denver Zoo’s bats are SO social that ongoing breeding can make it difficult to get an accurate count of our colony. Recently, our keepers were filming the bats as they enjoyed their meal of fresh melon when they noticed something unusual: a pure-white figure among the fast-moving brown bodies. 

Meet Shikaka, the White Bat