Bats Aren’t Blind
Interesting Facts in Easy English
Pre-Listening Vocabulary
- accurate: fully correct
- simile: a figure of speech for comparing one thing to another, often with “like” or “as”
- mammal: a warm-blood animal that nurses its young
- misleading: causing someone to think something that is not true
- echo: a sound that occurs due to a reflection of sound waves off an object
- prey: a living thing that is hunted and used for food
- nocturnal: active at night; at rest during daylight
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Bats Aren’t Blind
Comprehension Questions
- What type of animal is a bat?
- What is echolocation?
- Identify three myths about bats that are busted in this report.
Discussion Questions: Only a small amount of people are bitten by bats each year, while thousands of people are bitten by dogs. Why are so many people terrified of bats?
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Bats Aren’t Blind
The expression “blind as a bat” is not an accurate simile. Studies suggest that bats rely on visual landmarks just like birds do. Unlike birds, bats are mammals. The only mammal in the world that can fly is the bat. Some species of bats fly about rapidly when hunting for insects. This may be where the misleading expression comes from. It is true that bats don’t have strong night vision. Nocturnal bats rely on a sonar system called echolocation. They deliver a high-pitched call and wait for an echo. The echo tells the bats how far away they are from an object. This helps bats find their way around at night. It also helps them catch their prey. Not all bats are nocturnal, though. Large fruit bats don’t live in caves and actually like the daylight. Only a few of more than 1000 species of bats feed on blood.
- A bat is a flying mammal.
- Echolocation is a built-in sonar system that some animals have. A bat can make a sound and wait for the echo. Then it can determine how far away an object is.
- 3 myths: Bats are blind. All bats are nocturnal. All bats are blood suckers.
