How do bats fly?
Research shows that bats use a completely different lifting mechanism
than birds and insects do, and their wings are much more manuverable, built to ajust to the weight of these tiny flying creatures.
The German word for bats is "Fledermäuse," which translates as "flying mice." It's easy to see where this name came from -many bat species do look a lot like flying rodents. But in fact, bats are more closely related to humans than they are to mice and rats. If you look closely at a bat's wings, you can see the resemblance. The bird's wing has a fairly rigid bone structure, and the main flying muscles move the bones at the point where the wing connects to the body. A bat has a much more flexible wing structure. It is very much like a human arm and hand, except it has a thin membrane of skin (called the patagium) extending between the "hand" and the body, and between each finger bone. Bats can move the wing like a hand, essentially "swimming" through the air. The "thumb" extends out of the wing as a small claw, which bats use to climb up trees and other structures. This helps them reach a high "launching point" for flight takeoff. Appropriately, the order of bats is called Chiroptera, Greek for "hand-wing."
The German word for bats is "Fledermäuse," which translates as "flying mice." It's easy to see where this name came from -many bat species do look a lot like flying rodents. But in fact, bats are more closely related to humans than they are to mice and rats. If you look closely at a bat's wings, you can see the resemblance. The bird's wing has a fairly rigid bone structure, and the main flying muscles move the bones at the point where the wing connects to the body. A bat has a much more flexible wing structure. It is very much like a human arm and hand, except it has a thin membrane of skin (called the patagium) extending between the "hand" and the body, and between each finger bone. Bats can move the wing like a hand, essentially "swimming" through the air. The "thumb" extends out of the wing as a small claw, which bats use to climb up trees and other structures. This helps them reach a high "launching point" for flight takeoff. Appropriately, the order of bats is called Chiroptera, Greek for "hand-wing."