Bats are not blind
A BAT is the only mammal that can truly fly, and around one in every five kinds of mammal is a bat. Most bats can see perfectly well; many also find their way in the dark by echolocation, making high-pitched calls and listening for the echoes, which tell them the size, distance and even texture of an insect in flight. A single small bat can eat hundreds of midges and mosquitoes in a night.
The BUSHBABY, a small African primate, is named for a cry that sounds like a human baby. Its enormous eyes gather what little light there is, and it can leap several metres between branches. The AARDVARK, whose name means earth pig, digs into termite mounds at night with powerful claws. In Britain the BADGER digs a sett, a network of tunnels and chambers that can be used by generations of badgers, sometimes for centuries.
A cute primate with a venomous bite
The SLOW LORIS of Southeast Asia is the only venomous primate. It licks a gland on the inside of its elbow and mixes the oily liquid with its saliva, giving it a painful, sometimes dangerous bite. Videos online showing a loris raising its arms while being tickled are not showing a happy animal: raising the arms is how it reaches that gland to defend itself.
The PANGOLIN, covered in overlapping scales made of keratin, rolls into a tight ball when threatened. Sadly it is thought to be the most trafficked mammal in the world, hunted for its scales and meat, and all species are protected by international law.
Why moths fly round lights
A MOTH circling a lamp is not attracted to it in the simple sense. A 2024 study that filmed insects in flight found that they tilt their backs towards the brightest light, which in nature is almost always the sky. Near an artificial light, that instinct makes them loop and spiral round it, unable to fly straight. Our butterflies page covers moths too.
A FIREFLY, a kind of beetle, makes light with a chemical reaction in its body that produces almost no heat. Each species flashes in its own pattern, and in a few places, such as the Great Smoky Mountains in the United States, thousands of males flash in step at once.
Hedgehogs need a gap in the fence
A HEDGEHOG can travel a couple of kilometres a night looking for beetles, worms and slugs, but garden fences and walls cut many gardens off from each other. Hedgehog numbers in Britain have fallen sharply, and a simple fix is a hedgehog highway: a hole about thirteen centimetres square at the bottom of a fence, small enough to keep most pets in.
The KIWI of New Zealand, a flightless bird, has its nostrils at the tip of its long beak to sniff out worms in the soil, and lays an egg about a fifth of its own weight. The rest of the grid holds the OWL, NIGHTJAR, FOX, BADGER, RACCOON, POSSUM, COYOTE, SKUNK, MOLE, PORCUPINE, WOLF, MOUSE and CIVET. Our birds of prey page covers how owls hunt in the dark.