What comes to your mind when you think of a bat? Getting rabies, one sucking your blood, or one tangled in your hair? These are all misconceptions that hide how interesting these creatures really are.

Bats are the only mammals that are capable of flight. Some warm-blooded animals, such as the flying squirrel, can glide for a bit, but bats can dive, swoop and turn. They can also pinpoint a tiny insect and eat it midair.

You may have heard that bats accomplish this by echolocation, which is a process of using reflected sound to find objects. Neuroscientist Cynthia F. Moss of Johns Hopkins University and her colleagues found that they also use microscopic hairs to navigate.

Wired magazine wrote: “The hairs act like levers of sorts, tripping nerves that send signals to the brain, allowing the bat to precisely correct its flight to avoid obstacles and pick off insects—no small feat in the pitch blackness…‘ In addition there [are] other receptors called lanceolate endings, which are also associated with hairs,’ says Moss. She thinks those receptors transmit information about hair movements that occur both during flight and as bats use their wings in other surprisingly dexterous ways, like when they envelop prey or cradle their young.”

In addition, a bat’s wing can be more easily manipulated when compared to other flying animals. It is made from a membrane that consists of two thin layers of skin stretched over a bat’s bones. These bones, similar to human fingers, move independently. This way, the bat can change the shape of its wings to turn or stop quickly.

Another interesting fact about bats is that they can eat about 1,000 mosquitoes in an hour! We can be very thankful for this when we are outside on a warm summer night.

Now that you know more about bats, next time you think of one, put aside all the misconceptions and think about all the work God put into making this amazing creature.