Clumsy Bat:
A Children's Coloring Storybook
$5.99 Digital Download
Color your own pages in this heartwarming and educational story about a loveable long-eared bat named Clumsy as he learns to strike out on his own, encountering obstacles and learning to press on despite his mishaps along the way.
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This is a full-length 24 page story designed as an interactive coloring book for children, ages 5 to 12, to teach about bat ecology within a fun and uplifting journey. Download individual pages for daily coloring exercises and mounting masterpieces on family refrigerators, or color within the book itself and keep it whole as your very own storybook to be read over and over again with the youngsters.
Scroll down for some fun bat facts!Â
We donate 10% of all profits from Clumsy Bat sales to bat conservation projects!*
$15.99 Paperback
All About Bats!
Bats are amazing! They are the only mammal that can truly fly, and they have lots of special adaptations to help them survive on almost every continent and habitat on the planet.
There are 1395 different species of bats around the globe, and each one is unique and identifiable.
Bats are Cool!
Bats range in size from teeny tiny, weighing less than a penny (the Kitti's hog-nosed bat - Craseonycteris thonglongyai) to large and in charge like the Golden-crowned Flying Fox (Acerodon jubatus) who's wingspan can reach over five feet!
Bats roost in caves, tree hollows, rock crevices, inside cacti, and even around or under the eaves of human buildings for shelter and security.
Bats live in a variety of social group sizes, from entirely solitary like the Hoary Bat (Lasiurus cinereus) all the way to more than 15 million individuals in a single colony (Mexican free-tailed bats - Tadarida brasiliensis in Bracken Cave, Texas)!
Bats are Unique!
Bats are the only mammal that can truly fly! Others, such as the flying squirrel can only glide.
Their wings are modified hands with five fingers, elbows and shoulders connected by a fibrous membrane. See if you can see them all!
Bats are Misunderstood
Bats are not blind. In fact they have as good of vision as you or I, and in addition to good vision they can "see" with echolocation
(essentially a biological sonar system) everything besides color, and even as fine as a single human hair, in total darkness.
Bats can see so well at night and are acrobatic enough to snatch tiny insects in mid-air, so they can easily avoid accidentally swooping into and getting tangled in long hair, so don't fret ladies!
Contrary to popular belief, out of the over 1300 species of bats only three are Vampire Bats, and only one of which actually drinks mammalian blood! And they don't even suck the blood out, they lap it up like a dog licks up water.
Bats are Important
Bats are important to the ecosystem in many ways, but mostly because of what they eat!
Bats consume everything from insects, fruit, nectar from flowers, small mammals, and even fish! Each species specializes in a different food source, and all of them play an important role in the food web.
Species that drink nectar from flowers will pollenate those flowers just like a bee or a butterfly would, but they often specialize in flowers that bloom at night!
Bats that eat fruit disperse seeds and entire ecosystems would collapse without them. Fruit-eating bats are integral in replanting damaged forests, and are so good at it that they're often called the "farmers of the tropics."
Many species of bats eat tons and tons of insects, literally! In the United States alone it is estimated that bats save more than $3.7 billion in reduced crop damage and pesticide use.
Bats are Threatened
Even though bats are so environmentally and economically important to the planet, they face harsh difficulties and many are unfortunately on the decline.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists 24 bat species as 'critically endangered' (meaning they are in immediate threat of extinction), 53 species as 'endangered', 104 are considered vulnerable, and 226 species as "data deficient" - meaning there is just not enough known about them to say.
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That means that of the 1,296 species that they have measured, over a third of them are either declining towards extinction, or not enough data has been collected to correctly identify their status.
Bats face threats such as loss of habitat, deaths from wind turbines, direct human encroachment such as winter tourism, incorrectly harvested guano mining, bright nighttime lights, and even hunting for consumption.
Diseases such as the decimating White-nose Syndrome, caused by a cold-loving fungus that attacks during hibernation, can wipe out entire colonies.
How You Can Help!
There are many ways to help bats both locally and worldwide!
You can: Build a bat box and hang it outside.
Join a bat conservation group such as Bat Conservation International or the Center for Biological Diversity that is dedicated to protecting and bringing species back from the brink of extinction.
Donate to local causes helping bats, and encourage them to focus on bat-related projects.
Reduce local pesticide use and encourage low-light options for street lamps and unessential outdoor lighting.
And, of course, 10% of all proceeds from each purchase of Clumsy Bat: A Children's Coloring Storybook goes directly to bat conservation organizations!
By purchasing a copy you can educate a child (and their adults), entertain and build fond memories of batty-goodness, and support bat conservation efforts -
all in one!
Please note:
This page is still under construction, if you have notes or comments feel free to send them to cori@coriscritters.com!
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