Bat specialist, Niamh Roche descended on Ringsend Library to introduce pupils of St Patrick’s Girls School to the creatures of the night, the bats of Ireland.

Niamh explained that bats are an ancient species of mammal going back millions of years. There are 1,000 species of bat on earth comprising of mega and micro. Only the micro is found in Ireland, the largest being the Leislers. The smallest is the Pipistrelle, which is so tiny it can fit into a matchbox.

Two other interesting species of Irish bat are the Longeared and the Water Bats. The Longeared have ears the same length as its body, and its hearing is so keen that it can hear an insect walk on a leaf. The Water Bat skims to the surface of rivers to catch insects such as the Mayfly.

Unlike birds, bats cannot migrate to warmer climates for the winter so they hibernate in places such as caves, tree trunks or buildings and then wake up slowly in spring. They are nocturnal creatures and use a form of echo, produced by a series of ultra-sonic sounds, inaudible to humans, to manoeuvre in the dark and accurately detect insect prey.

The survival of the species is threatened by the use of insecticides in farming and the removal of the hedgerows which contain their main food source, insects. One way of helping to conserve bats who have lost their natural roosts is to erect timber bat boxes which are similar in appearance to bird boxes.

Contrary to popular belief, bats are not blind. They have sufficient sight to recognise landmarks in their surroundings and to distinguish changes in light. They are also clean creatures and not a health hazard like rodents, with whom they are sometimes compared, and they are unique in being the only mammal with the ability to fly, as in the popular operetta, ‘The Bat’– ‘Die Fledermaus’.

This event was presented by Dublin City Public Libraries as part of a programme for young people and Science Week Ireland 2006.