What is the only mammal that can fly?
Bats are the only mammals capable of true, flapping flight. Flying squirrels and some other mammals can glide, but they cannot fly under their own power.
A bat's wing is a thin membrane of skin stretched between very long finger bones, the arm and the body. Bats can change the shape of their wings with great precision, making them agile flyers that can turn sharply and catch insects in midair. The scientific name for the bat group, Chiroptera, means hand wing.
There are more than 1,400 species of bats, ranging from the bumblebee bat, which weighs about two grams, to flying foxes with wingspans of up to about 1.7 meters. They live on every continent except Antarctica and make up about one-fifth of all mammal species.
Gliding mammals
Flying squirrels, sugar gliders and colugos have flaps of skin between their legs that let them glide from tree to tree, sometimes over 100 meters. However, they cannot gain height or flap like bats. True powered flight has evolved only in insects, birds, bats and the extinct pterosaurs.
Did You Know?
Bats play key roles as pollinators and seed spreaders. Plants like bananas, mangoes and agave, used to make tequila, depend partly on bats.