Bat night at Mdina unveils secrets of winged mammals

On the day, the Malta Natural History Museum will be launching a temporary exhibition on bats, which shall be open to the public for two consecutive weeks.

The Malta Environment and Planning Authority (MEPA) in collaboration with Heritage Malta, is organising the event to give the public the chance to appreciate and understand how bats survive and live.

This event is part of Mepa’s ongoing biodiversity campaign ‘Biodiversity – It’s your life, protect it’ which was launched earlier in the year.

It is estimated that there are over 1,100 different types of bats in the world.Bats are considered as extremely interesting and important creatures, because apart from being the only flying mammals, they keep insect populations reduced as many make insects part or all of their diet.

Interestingly, eleven species of bats have been recorded in the Maltese Islands, six of these are known resident bats: the Lesser Horseshoe Bat (Rhinolophus hipposideros), Maghreb Bat (Myotis punicus), Sorprano Pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pygmaeus), Kuhl’s Pipistrelle (Pipistrellus kuhli), Common Pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pipistrellus), Grey Long eared Bat (Plecotus austriacus); whilst the other five species are considered to be rare and irregular migrants.

Bats are exceptionally vulnerable to extinction due to their slow reproductive rate, as they bear only one young per year.

Unfortunately, they face a variety of threats, including the modification of their roosting and feeding sites, disturbance and persecution. These mammals are legally protected through the Environment Protection Act, the Bern Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats, the Bonn Convention on Migratory Species and related EUROBATS Agreement, and the EC Habitats Directive.