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Chiroptera
From EvoWiki
Bats or Chiroptera are flying mammals. They have forelimbs modified for flight. Bats rely on flexible skin attached to the forelimbs, the hindlimbs and the body as wings. The flexible skin attached to four limbs gives bats more precision in flight than birds have. Bats are relatively helpless on the ground. This is analogous to the wings of the extinct pterodactyls and an example of Convergent Evolution. Bats are the only mammals capable of powered flight though some other mammals can glide notably colugos, [flying squirrel]]s and flying possums. Roughly 70 percent of bats are insectivores. Others eat fruit or pollinate flowers. Many smaller bats use echolocation to find their way about and find prey in the dark.
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Bat evolution
The earliest clear bats fossils are from the early Eocene though a fossil tooth apparently from a bat has been found in the Late Cretaceous in South America. Bat skeletons tend not to fossilize well. There is speculation that one group of bats, the Megachiroptera are descended from Primates and e3volvedflight independently of the others. Morphologically Megachiroptera resemble primates apart from their wings. The DNA of Megachiroptera is more like that of other bats.
The Bible
The Old Testament includes the bats among the birds. This should not be surprising as the Bronze Age herders who wrote that part of the Bible had no knowledge of modern science.
