White-bellied yellow bat facts for kids
Quick facts for kids White-bellied yellow bat |
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| Conservation status | |
Scientific classification  |
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| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Chiroptera |
| Family: | Vespertilionidae |
| Genus: | Scotophilus |
| Species: |
S. leucogaster
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| Binomial name | |
| Scotophilus leucogaster Cretzschmar, 1826
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The white-bellied yellow bat (Scotophilus leucogaster), also called the white-bellied house bat, is a type of bat. It belongs to a group known as "house bats." You can find this bat in many countries across Africa. These include Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Mali, Mauritania, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Togo, Uganda, and Zambia.
This bat likes to live in dry and wet savanna areas. It also lives in open woodlands. It is a very common animal and lives in a large area. Because of this, the International Union for Conservation of Nature says it is a "least concern" species. This means it is not in danger of disappearing.
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About the White-bellied Yellow Bat
House bats are strong bats with short noses. They have small ears and soft, woolly fur. The white-bellied yellow bat is a medium-sized bat. Its body and head together are about 120 millimeters (4.7 inches) long. Its tail is about 45 millimeters (1.8 inches) long. The part of its wing called the forearm is about 50 millimeters (2 inches) long. This bat usually weighs around 20 grams (0.7 ounces).
The color of these bats can change. Their back is usually yellow or yellowish-brown. Their belly is white or yellowish.
Where White-bellied Yellow Bats Live
The white-bellied yellow bat lives in a large area of Africa, south of the Sahara Desert. Its home stretches from Mauritania and Senegal in the west. It goes east to Sudan and Ethiopia. It also goes south to Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique. It might also live in South Africa.
In the northern parts of its home, it lives in different places. These include woodlands near rivers, wooded savannas, and among mangrove trees in Nigeria. In the southern parts, it lives in miombo and mopane woodlands. It also lives in forests near rivers, grasslands, swamps, and flood plains. Sometimes, it seems to prefer drier places during the wet season. It then moves to wetter places during the dry season.
White-bellied Yellow Bat Behaviour
These bats start looking for food soon after the sun sets. They fly around in open areas, between trees, and over grasslands. They fly up to about 20 meters (65 feet) high. Often, they can fill their stomachs in just an hour. After eating, they stop to digest their food. Then they start hunting again.
They are less active on nights when the moon is bright. They avoid open spaces then. This might help them avoid being caught by barn owls or bat hawks. They use echolocation to find their food. This means they send out sounds and listen for the echoes. Their diet is mostly beetles, moths, and bugs. They also eat other kinds of insects. In captivity, they have even eaten geckos and dead bats.
During the day, these bats sleep in hidden spots. They have been found sleeping in holes in baobab trees. They also use hollow mopane trees. Sometimes, they sleep under dead fronds of Borassus palm trees. They have even been found under the tin roof of a house. The temperature under these roofs can be over 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit). Sometimes, they use the same sleeping spot more than once. In Sudan, these bats flew slowly if the air temperature was below 34 degrees Celsius (93 degrees Fahrenheit).
Reproduction
In Zimbabwe, white-bellied yellow bats have their babies in November and December. Usually, a mother bat will have two babies at a time.
 | Bayard Rustin |
 | Jeannette Carter |
 | Jeremiah A. Brown |
