Infographic: Reconsider your relationship with bats?

Bats get a bum rap. Portrayed as evil, scary, and devious creatures, bats are simply animals. Mexican free-tailed bats are focused on eating mosquitos and flies. They have no interest in nibbling on your neck or nesting in your hair. So, my mission is to ignite a new relationship between people and bats.

I want to associate bats in this infographic and post with their positive roles. First, as pest eaters, free-tails save farmers millions of dollars annually. Realizing their tremendous contributions to Texas's agricultural challenges, then-governor George Bush recognized Mexican Free-tailed bats as the state's official flying mammal in 1994!

(Honestly, bats are the only flying mammal, so it was kind of a low bar, but the gesture was authentic. Bats are clearly beneficial to farmers.)

Second, it is spectacular when bats leave their roost for nightly feedings. I urge searching the Web to see if a colony of bats lives near you. Tens of thousands of winged heroes streaming into the summer sky to snack on mosquitos deliver awe to kids of all ages.