Oh, we’ve been flying for eons!

A photograph of a roosting greater mouse eared bat.
A greater mouse eared bat . Photo by MissMishi on Wikimedia Commons.

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week! I enjoyed my last week before standardized testing begins. I only have one test a week for the next two weeks, but I still wish I didn’t have to take them.

I have some exciting news. The oldest common mouse-eared bat fossil ever found has been discovered in Belgium! The bones were found back in the 1990’s. They found teeth, fragments of the bat’s jaw, and some other small bones. Not only are these fossils cool to look at, they also prove that the mouse-eared bats have been flying around this Earth for over 33 million years! What is really amazing is that after 33 million years, the mouse-eared bats don’t seem to have changed much.

Scientists had previously estimated how long these bats have been on Earth. This new discovery shows that they were off by about 7 million years. Researchers think that the reason the bats have survived this long is that bats are the only flying mammal. This means they don’t need to compete for food and other resources as much as other animals. Hopefully this also means that we’ll have our furry friends flying around for a long time to come.

If you would like to read more about this amazing discovery, you can find the article here 

I would like to wish all the moms out there a very Happy Mother’s Day! I hope you all have a fantastic day!

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