One of many common misconceptions about bats consists of saying that they’re rodents, and thus related to mice. In the other study, mice were compared to two species of bats (Brazilian free-tailed bats, Tadarida brasiliensis, and cave bats, Myotis velifer) both of which live up to 12 years in the wild (Salmon et al. It has later been established that this statement is wrong: bats are not rodents, nor are they even related to rodents. Bats are more closely related to cats and dogs than they are to rodents like mice and beavers. 2009). In fact, humans are more closely related to rats than bats are! Bats are such unique animals that scientists have placed them in a group all their own, called ‘Chiroptera’, which means hand-wing. Half the megabat (fruit bat) species are hunted for food, but only eight percent of the insectivorous bat species. Fruit bats also see in color. More than half of the species of bats are Insectivores, eating mainly insects, the other species thrive typically on an all fruit. Though you may be tempted to view them as flying mice, bats have no connection to rodents. Bats aren't soup ingredients, and they aren't scapegoats for COVID-19. Most bats can see as well as humans. In Guam, Mariana fruit bats (Pteropus mariannus) are considered a delicacy. They want to be free to nurse their young, form friendships, and forage for insects. Bats are not even remotely related to rodents. They are in no way related to any kind of rodent family (like mice, rats, rabbits, etc). While rodents fall under the category of life forms known as Rodentia, bats belong to an entirely different group – the order of Chiroptera, a classification reserved only for bats. Bats do not try to become tangled in hair. Fruit bats have eyesight that is adapted to low-light, much like cats.

Why People Tend to Think bats and Mice are Related. Bats are eaten by people in parts of some Asian, African, Pacific Rim countries and cultures, including Vietnam, Seychelles, Indonesia, Palau, Thailand, China, and Guam.

In this case, basal damage to liver proteins as measured by carbonylation was less in free-tailed bats than in mice, but this was not true of cave bats. Bats are not blind. Bats and rodents do have a few things in common nonetheless. There are only three known species that eat the blood of animals, or small vertebrates. Bats are their own special family of Chiroptera (from the Greek for "hand wing").