Foscor: oportunitat o reclusió per als ratpenats?

Since the Jurassic, bats have been very successful in their evolutionary strategy. More than 1200 species of bats have occupied all habitats in the Earth except glaciers. Flight and echolocation have been necessary to conquer the night, but is the night a prison or a paradise for bats? Three hypotheses are discussed in order to understand why bats are nocturnal animals.Bat wings are made of thin skin that is full of capillary terminations that are especially sensitive to water loss. It would therefore be reasonable to think that bats take refuge in the darkness of the night in order to avoid overheating and dehydration. Birds coexisted with bats in the Jurassic, so bats may have moved to the darkness of night to avoid competition from birds. They may also have done so to avoid falcons.All these hypotheses are reasonable, but it is known that few bird species were insectivorous when bat species originated, so competition was not a great problem for bats. On the other hand, falcons are very efficient flying hunters of bats, and some researchers have reported that in oceanic islands bats fly during daylight when falcons are absent.In conclusion, bats are nocturnal creatures that used confinement to develop their inherent mammal capabilities. Predation risks confined bats to darkness and gave them the opportunity to become one of the most successful evolutionary beings on Earth.