Small hunters with a role in the landscape
Vive Cabeceiras · Morcegos · funções ecológicas gerais

Eating insects connects bats with fields and forests too.

Insect-eating bats connect the night with fields and forests. By feeding, they help control insect populations, including species that can affect farming and trees. The ICNF text invites us to discover this ecological role beyond the myths surrounding bats.

Worldwide, there are other diets and relationships: fruit-eating bats can contribute to forest regeneration, while pollen-feeding bats take part in pollination. These global examples do not assign those diets to species recorded in Cabeceiras.

Thinking about food is a way to connect an animal with the landscape. What resources does it seek? What other organisms are involved? Ecological roles are not limited to the number of individuals we can see. In the local story, this explanation accompanies the documentary record of the greater horseshoe bat; it adds no new observation.

Sources and context
ICNF — There are bats in the air..., text by Cristina Girão Vieira
https://www.icnf.pt/api/file/doc/6ccd1be3686e0fa3
Accessed: 2026-11-07

Editorial summary. The date of consultation is not the date of the facts.
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