It’s frickin’ bats! History and significance of the winged mammal in Central Texas

AUSTIN (KXAN) — In the words of the beloved and viral video, “it’s frickin’ bats!” And in Central Texas, they aren’t just a Halloween-time sighting; they’re a significant part of the ecosystem, locally and statewide.

In fact, Texas as a whole is distinctive for its bat populations, compared to the rest of the country.

According to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Texas is the “battiest state in the country,” home to 32 of the 47 species of bats found in the United States.

Austin’s bats are quite famous, too. The largest urban bat colony in the world — estimated at 1.5 million bats — lives in the heart of Austin, in the Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue Bridge. According to TPWD, the maternity colony of Mexican free-tailed bats began roosting in the bridge in the 1980s after the bridge was remodeled.

Texas also has the largest known bat colony in the world, period. That, too, is in Central Texas.

The Bracken Cave Preserve, which is just north of San Antonio, is the summer home for more than 15 million Mexican free-tailed bats.

Visitors from around the world visit Texas for bat viewing at several locations throughout the state. In Austin, the Congress Avenue Bridge colony brings about 140,000 people and $10 million to the city each year, per TPWD.

Benefits of bats

While bats are cool to watch, they also have economic and ecological benefits.

According to austinbats.org, run by Merlin Tuttle’s Bat Conservation, free-tailed bats in Texas save farmers more than a billion dollars annually in avoided pesticide use. They intercept billions of migrating moth pests each spring, and one bat can easily prevent more than 20,000 eggs from being laid in a single night, the website states.

Free-tailed bats of Central Texas consume close to 200 tons of insects on an average summer night, according to the site.

Bats were also responsible for the biggest mineral export of Texas, prior to the discovery of oil. That mineral was guano fertilizer, which was extracted from bats’ caves.

Guano was also used by the Confederacy in a gunpowder factory outside of San Antonio, according to an entry in the “Journal of the Life and Culture of San Antonio,” published on the University of the Incarnate Word’s website.

The flying nocturnal mammals were also a subject of fascination for San Antonio doctor Charles A. R. Campbell, who was behind the world’s first successful experiments with attracting hundreds of thousands of bats to fight malaria-carrying mosquitoes, according to the same journal entry from UIW.

When are the bats here?

Mexican free-tailed bats are the most common bat found throughout Texas. According to TPWD, Mexican free-tailed bats are migratory and spend the winters in caves in Mexico.

The bats start their migration to Texas in February, and by early spring, female bats form large maternity colonies where they will raise their young. Austin’s bat colony is a maternity colony.

In June, mother bats give birth to one pup each. Male bats do not help in raising the pups and instead form smaller “bachelor” colonies away from females, according to TPWD.

By August, most pups are flying and foraging on their own. Late summer is also typically the peak bat emergence time period.

When the first cold fronts come in late October to mid-November, the Mexican free-tailed bats begin their migration to Mexico for the winter, per TPWD.