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Bat Appreciation Day is April 17, and Alachua County Library District would like to take this time and space to say: let's appreciate bats! Our flying mammalian cousins are wonderful and unique creatures within the animal kingdom. They're the only mammal with an innate ability to fly, and they use their skybound prowess to cut down on bug populations, echolocate, and pollinate fruiting trees. Bats are essential to local ecosystems all over the world.
If you'd like to visit the library in April to appreciate and learn about bats, we have a program available. On April 19 at 11 a.m., the Tower Road Branch is holding a program, Welcoming Pollinators To Your Home, about how to help pollinators (including bats!) in your own yard.
Not batty enough for you? Well, we have some books for that! Please read on for an all-ages booklist about our wonderful, leathery cousins.
Megabat
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Daniel Misumi has just moved to a new house. It's big and old and far away from his friends and his life before. AND it's haunted... or is it? Megabat was just napping on a papaya one day when he was stuffed in a box and shipped halfway across the world. Now he's living in an old house far from home, feeling sorry for himself and accidentally scaring the people who live there. Daniel realizes it's not a ghost in his new house. It's a bat. And he can talk.
The Secret Lives of Bats
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Enamored of bats ever since discovering a colony in a cave as a boy, Tuttle realized how sophisticated and intelligent bats are. He shares research showing that frog-eating bats can identify frogs by their calls, that vampire bats have a social order similar to that of primates, and that bats have remarkable memories. Bats also provide enormous benefits by eating crop pests, pollinating plants, and carrying seeds needed for reforestation; they are essential to a healthy planet.
Bats: An Illustrated Guide to All Species
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Bats: An Illustrated Guide to All Species explores bats and their fundamental role in our ecosystems through lavish full-color photographs and lively narrative. From the Giant Golden Crowned Flying Fox, a megabat with a wingspan of more than five feet, to the aptly named Bumblebee Bat, the world's smallest mammal, the number and diversity of bat species have proven to be both rich and underestimated.