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Latin name: Mormoops megalophyllaSize: About 3.5 inches long, with a wingspan of 14–15 inchesHabitat: Caves and abandoned mines and tunnels Is any creature more unfairly maligned than the bat? Nature’s only flying mammal (flying squirrels merely glide) is the stuff of Halloween lore, often depicted on-screen as a bloodsucking, disease-spreading vampire that swoops down onto unsuspecting victims. Never mind that out of more than 1,400 bat species, only 3 are vampiric, meaning they feed on the blood of other animals—and even they rarely attack us. (Nor are vampire bats currently found in Texas.) Bats have had a PR problem since at least 1896, when the first horror film, Georges Méliès’s Le manoir du diable, depicted a giant bat that turns into the devil. Not great! Public…

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