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WHY WRITE ABOUT BATS, PLANTS and PEOPLE? SOME VALUABLE BAT-PLANT PRODUCTS

 

Bats, the only mammals with true powered flight, are extraordinary in many, many respects. However, just by their normal habits of eating and excretion they unwittingly provide valuable economic and ecological services for the earth and its inhabitants.

There are just over 1000 bat species. Most bats eat insects including some disease-causing and crop-eating insects. The insect-eating bats help to reduce illness, crop loss and the use of poisonous pesticides on food.

Over 250 kinds of bats drink nectar and pollinate flowers, eat fruit and disperse seeds of plants that protect the earth, provide hundreds of valuable products and many income opportunities for human beings.

The chapters in this website are about those bat-plants.

A few of the bat-plant contributions to Planet Earth:

• Oxygen
• Drinking water
• Food for many life forms including mammals, birds, fish, crustaceans, insects
• Habitats for mammals, birds, crustaceans, fish, insects
• Erosion protection

A few of the bat-plant contributions to human beings:

Basic Essentials

Food
Housing (Timber for construction, thatch for roofing)
Employment
Fuel

Inside the House

Furniture
Stuffing for mattresses, cushions
Food containers, food wrappers, dishes
Baskets, vases
Candles, oil for lighting

Human Adornment

Cloth for clothing
Sandals
Hats
Jewelry
Cosmetics

Human Pleasure and Artistry

Toys
Musical instruments
Wood for carving and sculpture
Mood changers
Chewing gum

Human Well-being

Medicines for every imaginable human ailment
Toothbrushes

Outside the House

Poles for enclosure fences, outbuilding construction
Wood for tools, tool handles
Ornamental and shade trees

Transportation

Canoes, boats, rafts
Paddles
Sails
Rope for rigging, moorage
Carts

Food Production and Gathering

Archer's bows
Arrow poison
Fish poison (for fish harvests)
Net toughener
Eco-friendly pesticide for crops
Cattle, pig food
Agricultural tools
Rope, twine

Communication

Paper
Village meeting trees (palaver trees)

Religion and Magic

Sacred trees
Charms, fetishes
Special wood for funeral pyres

Industrial

Timber for mine supports
Timber for railway sleepers or ties
Timber for wharves
Paper pulp
Charcoal
Tannin

Commercial

Bat-plant products are part of hundreds of commercial products.

For example:
Flying foxes pollinate the flowers of the Coconut Palm.
Listed below are some of the commercial products based in part on coconut oil.

Margarine
Soup
Cosmetics
Soap
Bath and shower gels
Toothpaste foaming agent
Detergent
Perfumes
Flavourings
Lubricating fluids for racing cars, aeroplane engines
Printing inks

Flying foxes pollinate the flowers of some Mangrove Trees. Listed below are some of the products from Mangrove Trees.

Charcoal, wood chips, railway sleepers, dock pilings, scaffolding, mining props, fishing boats, fishing poles, fish traps, tannin, textile fibres, cosmetics, matchsticks, incense, cigarette wrappers, musical instruments, dyes, thatch, matting, sugar, alcohol, cooking oil, vinegar, honey, medicines, paper, newsprint, tool handles