Do Bats Avoid Light?
Bats and lights
When you think about it, the common belief that bats avoid light seems logical to the lesser informed masses. Even if you know that bats aren’t blind (Yes, they’re not blind. More on that later), their nocturnal habits and reliance on echolocation to hunt and navigate their surroundings, does give one the impression that bats are one species that wouldn’t want anything to do with light.
And you wouldn’t be wrong. Despite the trend, sometimes preconceived notions are true. Bats really do avoid light, be it natural or artificial, but not entirely for the reasons mentioned above.
Why bats avoid lights
As mentioned before, bats aren’t blind. Their eyesight is pretty good, which is why most bats use it in combination with their echolocation ability to hunt for prey and navigate their surroundings. The trouble with their eyesight, however, isn’t the lack of it, but it’s oversensitivity: at night their vision is better than most other animals in the vicinity, but the trade-off is an extreme intolerance to light which makes their vision completely useless and more often than not a hindrance in the daytime. As a result, a bat introduced in bright light would behave as if it was blind, which would make them easy prey for any predator in the area.
The measure they take to avoid light
Fortunately for bats, they’re aware of this crippling disadvantage in areas with bright light and actively take steps to avoid contact with it. While their nocturnal behaviour means they won’t have to deal with daylight unless necessary, they also take some steps to avoid human-made sources of light at night like street lamps, often taking alternate routes to their destination to avoid an area lit up by these lamps.
The only scenario where a bat would actively try to get near a light source is in the case of an ultraviolet lamp, but only because they attract scores of insects which a bat would try to take advantage of. And even then, it’s only the fast-flying bats that would bother to go near these lamps in the first place.
How light can be used as a weapon against Bats
Knowing bats don’t prefer light can be useful if you’re trying to get them out of your house, like if they’ve occupied your attic. Placing a bright light inside an attic and making sure it completely illuminates space would be a great way to get bats out. Why? It’s cost-effective, easy to set up and doesn’t harm the bats in the process, only drives them out. So it’s worth a try.
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