Pallid bat
Antrozous pallidus
— Where the name comes from
Antrozous is “animal of the caves”, from the Greek ántron, the cavern, and zôon; pallidus is the Latin “pale”, for the very light yellowish fur that hides it against desert rock. It is one of the few bats whose pale colour serves not to hide it against the sky but against the ground, because that is where it hunts.
— Facts
- Group
- Mammals · Mammalia
- Order
- Bats
- Habitat
- Rocky desert and semi-desert, canyons; hunting on foot at ground level
- Range
- Western North America, from British Columbia to Mexico
- Size
- 9–14 cm including tail, 40 cm wingspan, 14–25 g
- Diet
- Carnivore — scorpions, sun spiders, beetles, grasshoppers taken on the ground
- Lifespan
- Up to 9 years
— Characteristics
- 01
It hunts on the ground, walking, and finds prey by the sound of their footsteps.
- 02
It eats scorpions, sting included, and is immune to their venom.
- 03
It pollinates the columnar cacti of the Mexican desert.
— What sets it apart
It eats scorpions and their stings do nothing to it. It is stung regularly during the struggle, on the face included, and goes on eating as though nothing had happened: studies of its sodium channels have shown that its pain receptors do not respond to the neurotoxin, through a molecular change comparable to the grasshopper mouse’s. It is an immunity evolved independently twice in the same desert, in two mammals with nothing in common but the prey.
