Bats were recast from scary creatures to ecological superheroes Saturday at the Third Annual Florida Lubee Bat Festival.
About 1,000 attendees learned about bat "superpowers," such as seed dispersal and pollination, when the Lubee Bat Conservancy opened from noon to 3:30 p.m.
The one-day event featured Lubee's fruit-bat population and information about the bats.
Fruit bats are pollinators, like birds and butterflies, and can have wingspans of up to five feet and consume large amounts of overripe fruit, said Bat Fest coordinator Brock Eastman.
After eating, a bat will drop fruit seeds from its mouth or 30 minutes later in its droppings while flying over open fields, Eastman said.
He said bats are responsible for 80 to 90 percent of regrowth in previously cleared rainforest areas.
"It's such a huge impact, and nobody knows anything about it," Eastman said.
Lubee director Allyson Walsh spoke at the event on the theme of bats as superheroes. She began by debunking some common myths about the misunderstood creature.
Bats can see very well and are sophisticated enough to stay clear of people's hair, Walsh said.
Very few of them actually drink blood, she said. Those that do, the vampire bat species, produce an anticoagulant that is being researched for use in heart surgery, she said.
Many bats species are vegetarian, like the fruit bats at Lubee, Walsh said. Others eat insects and provide pest-control services, a benefit many people never consider, she said.
Walsh said bats are not carriers of rabies because they die quickly when they contract the disease. However, people should know to stay away from a grounded bat, she said, because it may be sick and may try to defend itself.
Bats are in peril because their habitat is vanishing and because they are overhunted, Walsh said. Bats are hunted for food in developing countries because they are a good protein source, she said, which can be problem because bats have one baby a year, and hunters can kill hundreds in one night.
Festivalgoers saw the bats at Lubee consume a colorful feast of watermelon, papayas, cantaloupe, pumpkins, corn, mangoes, green peppers and purple cabbage. Bat keepers were nearby to speak about the bats and point out specific bats by name.
To reinforce the idea of bats as superheroes, kids could collect comic book pages about bats, make bat masks and get their faces painted.
