Pipistrelle bat
As a small bat you would weigh about as much as a sugar cube and find your dinner in total darkness by shouting at it.
Seeing with sound
The small bats of European towns and forests are mostly pipistrelles: the common pipistrelle, Pipistrellus pipistrellus, and its near twin the soprano pipistrelle, recognised as a separate species only in the 1990s, largely by the pitch of their calls. You would weigh roughly 4–8 g, with a wingspan of about 20 cm. Your wings are skin stretched between enormously long finger bones.
At dusk you leave the roost and hunt flying insects by echolocation: you emit rapid ultrasonic calls and read the echoes to judge the size, distance and movement of prey. As you close in, the calls speed up into a so-called feeding buzz. A pipistrelle can catch thousands of midges and mosquitoes in a single night. Bats are not blind; they simply rely on hearing for the job eyes cannot do in the dark.
Where you sleep
Pipistrelles roost in crevices: behind cladding, under roof tiles, in wall cavities of houses and churches, in tree holes and bat boxes. In early summer females gather in maternity colonies, sometimes of dozens to hundreds, and each gives birth to a single pup, occasionally twins. The pup clings to its mother, drinks milk and can fly at about three to four weeks old.
In autumn bats mate and fatten up. Winter is spent in torpor in cool, sheltered places such as cellars, old fortifications, caves and cracks in buildings. Body temperature drops close to that of the surroundings and the heart slows dramatically; waking up too often burns precious fat.
Protected, but vulnerable
All bat species are legally protected across the European Union. Their main threats are loss of roosts during renovation, fewer insects, cats, owls, wind turbines and timber treatment chemicals. For such a small mammal, a pipistrelle lives surprisingly long: commonly four to five years, with ringed individuals recorded beyond ten.
