Bracken Cave is more than 100 feet deep.
Courtesy of Bruce D Taubert/Bat Conservation International (bat); Courtesy of Jonathan Alonzo/Bat Conservation International (cave)
To the Bat Cave!
The world’s largest bat colony lives in a cave in Texas.
Jim McMahon/Mapman®
At sunset, a strange noise fills the air. It sounds like heavy rainfall. But the noise isn’t from a storm. It’s created by the beating wings of more than 15 million bats! As visitors gather to watch, the bats pour out of a cave, forming what looks like a tornado.
Welcome to Bracken Cave near San Antonio, Texas. The underground cave is home to the largest colony of bats in the world.
Hanging Out
All the adult bats at Bracken Cave are female Mexican free-tailed bats. They live there from March to October, giving birth before migrating south to Mexico. The bats spend their days hanging upside down from the ceiling.
It might seem impossible for 15 million bats to fit in one cave. But hundreds of them can fit in a space the size of a sheet of notebook paper.
If the bats don’t scare you away, the stench from the cave might. The cave floor is covered with a 100-foot-high pile of guano, or bat poop.
Winged Helpers
Though some people think bats are creepy, experts say there’s no reason to fear them. In fact, bats are nature’s helpers.
In the evening, the bats fly out of Bracken Cave to hunt for dinner. They eat more than 300,000 pounds of insects each night. They gobble up mosquitoes, as well as moths and beetles that can destroy crops. With millions of bats pouring out of the cave, the insects don’t stand a chance!
