Study finds that Bats might eat birds

Bats, lauded for scooping up mosquitoes and other nasty pests but reviled for drinking blood and spreading rabies, now have another unpopular habit to live down -- it appears they eat songbirds, scientists said on Tuesday.

Spanish and Swiss researchers said they had nailed down controversial evidence that one large species of bat preys on little birds as they migrate through the dark of night over the Mediterranean.

They said giant noctule bats, large bats with an 18-inch (45-centimetre) wingspan, were eating mostly insects during the spring but appeared to have a diet heavy in bird meat during the autumn.

No other animal preys on birds that migrate at night, and this species of bat may have switched to this abundant food source recently, they reported in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS ONE.

"In the course of a few million years, bats colonised most ecological niches and learnt to exploit a wide array of food sources including arthropods, pollen, fruit, small terrestrial vertebrates and even blood," Ana Popa-Lisseanu and Carlos Ibanez of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas in Seville, Spain, and colleagues wrote. At one point researchers found bird feathers in the faeces of the bats, creating controversy. So they looked for more direct evidence, by analizing the blood of the bats. That is where they found their proof. This is a fascinating new discovery. It shows that their eating habits can adapt very well to a given food situation and shows that we have much to learn about bats in general.