There are more than 1,400 bat species in the world, so we can’t talk about all of them here!

Bats can be as large as a small dog or as small as a bee. The largest bats are the flying foxes with wingspans of up to 2 metres and a body weights of up to 1.5 kilograms. At the other end of the scale is the bumblebee bat, weighing only 2 grams – the world’s smallest mammal! Did you know that bats are more closely related to humans than they are to mice?

Bats in the UK eat only insects, but bats elsewhere also dine on frogs, fruit, other bats, nectar from flowers, blood, pollen and fish. Some bats use echolocation to navigate and hunt, while others rely on smell and vision to find food.