So 15 minutes ago I head to the back door to call in one of our cats, who is notoriously difficult to get inside - especially if there's critters to hunt. I see him in the back yard, which was fairly dark, and I open the door for him. As he bolts towards the door, I see something in his mouth, so I attempt to close it, but not before a bursts through and drops a freaking live BAT on the floor. As you might know, cats typically like to play with their prey and tire it out before killing it, and this little guy was exhausted. He flapped around on the floor a couple of times while making a bizarre, rapid clicking sound (like a small socket wrench being quickly twisted). I grabbed him by the wing and tossed him outside to get him away from the cat, went to the garage and got a thick firefighter's glove (didn't want to get bit), then went back and picked him up from the grass to see if he was OK. He was breathing quickly, snarling, and clicking like crazy, but otherwise seemed fine. Right after I snapped this picture, he crawled onto his stomach and took off into the night.

Damn cat...

Hot.

What a disgusting creature.

You know, some bats look like assfaces and some look kind of cute. That's one of the assfacey ones.

Dang cats.

... and didn't we just have a bat thread? Hm.

I've been seeing ALOT of bats lately.

Weird, because we haven't seen them here in years. They're pretty cool, if you throw tennis balls straight up in the air they'll chase them.

Must be viral marketing for The Dark Knight.

We'll see how assface you look after being mauled by a cat =p

poor bat

I love bats.

If this happened to Fardreamer he'd probably be hyperventilating in the emergency room within ten minutes.

I want to make a post halfway between Jin and Joncys post, both admiring bats, batman and also showing my emotion towards the evil torture of the bat, next time i see a cat i'll give it a taste of its own medicine by throwing a grappling hook at it.

I think bats are quite cool- there seem to be loads at the bottom of my garden, but none of them every fly up to the house- probably wary of my dogs.

I don't know guys.. he looks kinda cute.

But don't got getting mad at the cat. that's just what cats do.

That's a bat in the Vespertilionidae family. They're the most common type of bat in North America, and since they're microchiroptera, they use echolocation. And they eat insects. That's all I pretty much know about them. They're the bats you think of when you think of bats.

False! Only one bat every comes to mind. And his trusty sidelick. . . .um, kick.

You need a girlfriend, Mr. Sodapop...

it was chirping at you because it needed to return to it's coffin before dawn

YOUR CAT TRIED TO KILL DRACULA

slash fanart should be permabannable.

Especially Batman slash fanart. BATMAN IS NOT GAY.

He's wearing tights.

THEY'RE NOT TIGHTS. IT'S AN INTIMIDATING PERSONA DESIGNED TO INFLICT FEAR APON HIS ENEMIES.

That's less gay and more pedo I think.

This thread is starting to fail.

yeah, the fear of being raped by a gay weirdo

No, I think it's already failed quite conclusively by now.

you know what this means...


VAMPIRE CATS

Bleck. A few years ago I lived at a house with a "bonus" room downstairs that I used as my office. Inside there was a pellet stove, used to heat the place. One day I heard a bunch of scratching noises from inside. I opened the cover, saw nothing... a while later I heard it again, louder, so I opened it again, and a bat came flying out. It did a few circles around the room, then I opened the sliding glass door and it took off (I was surprised at how easily it found the exit, most birds just fly around hitting walls forever, bats are cool). It had climbed all the way down the chimney, through the exhaust port, and into the pellets somehow. I was amazed.

When I first moved in, the stove wouldn't work, and some dudes came out and took a dead bird out of the chimney pipe. It was sick.

I laughed.

Anyway, the clicking noise was the echolocation. They send out the noise and their ears pick it up and it gives them a 'picture' of their surroundings. I know dolphins do it too, not sure what else.

And forget bananas, echolocation is an athiest's nightmare.

Yeh, it's like echolocation was perfectly made to fit into my hand and be eaten, *YOMP*.

Okay, Ozzy.

You should've putten it in a large jar or cage or something and sold it on ebay, claiming it was hit by Michael Jackson's (or some other famous person) car.

Bats are just miniature flying bears.

No, not really.

I wonder if the bat survived, or if it caught CSD.

Echolocation requires specialized ears to hear the sounds, a specialized apparatus to produce it, and stuff in the brain to interpret it. All at the same time.

Also, what are the odds that two barely related species evolved the same system?

Pretty slim.

PS: Did you know that a sperm whale can stun their prey with a powerful sonar blast?

Do me a favor and count how many creatures, no matter how unrelated, have eyes. Now count how many have ears. Move on to olfactory bulbs. These creatures have specialized organs for the senses of sight, hearing, and smelling and "stuff in the brain" to interpret it.

Bananas have six sides.

They fit perfectly in your hand.


WTF, why would they do that, to get eaten? DARWIN WAS WRONG!

I read that as "Did you know that a sperm whale can stun their prey with a powerful boner blast?"

Even human beings are capable of rudimentary echolocation. Certain blind individuals have accomplished it through practice - by making a clicking noise and hearing the reflected sound, the brain adapts to interpret it.


It isn't uncommon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analogy_(biology)

Comparing regular hearing to echolocation is silly. And eyes you can trace all the way back to a common ancestor. But echolocation? The only mammals that have it are toothed whales, microbats, and shrews. I'm not sure what they all evolved from but I don't think it could echolocate.