Why the Immune System Is a Bat’s Secret Superpower

Bats are the only mammal group that can fly, but this key trait may allow them to do much more. » Subscribe to Seeker! http://bit.ly/subscribeseeker » Visit our shop at http://shop.seeker.com Bats make up about twenty percent of all mammals and because of that, they’re everywhere, living on almost every continent. And they vary in size and appearance. Take the flying fox for example, some have a wingspan of about a meter-and-a-half while the bumblebee bat, as its name suggests, has a wingspan of just 15 centimeters. Now, the easiest comparison to make is between bats and birds. While some birds are great at cruising flight, bats have the edge when it comes to maneuvering. And that all comes down to how bat wings are built. The bone structure of bat wings is incredibly flexible. If you’ve ever watched a bat hunt an insect, you can see just how agile they are, almost like an aerial acrobat, capable of sharp dives and quick turns. #bats #science #seeker #tusktotails #anatomy Read More: Novel Insights Into Immune Systems of Bats https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2020.00026/full "In recent years, viruses similar to those that cause serious disease in humans and other mammals have been detected in apparently healthy bats." Bat https://www.britannica.com/animal/bat-mammal "Bat, (order Chiroptera), any member of the only group of mammals capable of flight." Bat flight: aerodynamics, kinematics and flight morphology https://jeb.biologists.org/content/218/5/653 "Bats evolved the ability of powered flight more than 50 million years ago." ____________________ Tusks, trunks, claws, tails. Animals have evolved in ways to adapt to their environment by developing some truly unusual physical traits. Why did elephants develop a trunk, and how does it even work? What are insect wings made of? How are tails used throughout the animal kingdom? Our host Dr. Evan Antin explores the strange world of animal physiology. Seeker empowers the curious to underst