What Do Bats Eat?

Bats are the most dietarily diverse mammals on Earth. With more than 1,400 species spread across every continent except Antarctica, what bats eat depends entirely on which bat you're talking about. Some eat nothing but insects — thousands per night. Others eat fruit, nectar, pollen, fish, frogs, or (famously) blood.

This guide breaks down every major bat diet — with depth on North American species because that's what most readers encounter — and tackles the biggest myth of all: how many mosquitoes bats actually eat.

The Short Answer: What Do Bats Eat?

About 70% of all bat species eat insects — moths, beetles, flies, mosquitoes, and anything else they can catch on the wing. The rest are split between fruit, nectar, pollen, fish, small vertebrates, and in three species only, blood. Every bat in the United States and Canada eats insects. Fruit bats live in tropical regions. Vampire bats live in Mexico and Central and South America.

A single insect-eating bat can consume 3,000 or more insects in one night, eating up to half its body weight in bugs on a single foraging run.

The Four Bat Diet Types

Every bat species on Earth falls into one of these feeding categories. Understanding which type you're dealing with explains everything about the bat's behavior, where it lives, and what time of night you'll see it.

What Insect-Eating Bats Eat

Every bat native to the United States and Canada is an insectivore. The little brown bat, big brown bat, Mexican free-tailed bat, eastern red bat, hoary bat, and every other species you'll encounter in North America eats insects and nothing else. Their diet is surprisingly specific by species, though, because different bats hunt at different altitudes, speeds, and flight styles.

Big brown bats are particularly valuable to farmers — their beetle-heavy diet includes cucumber beetles, June bugs, and stink bugs, all major agricultural pests. Mexican free-tailed bats, which form colonies of millions, consume hundreds of tons of crop-pest moths across the southern U.S. every night during summer.

Do Bats Really Eat Mosquitoes?

Yes — but not as many as you've probably heard. The popular claim that "a single bat eats 1,000 mosquitoes per hour" has been widely repeated for decades, but it comes from a 1960 lab study where little brown bats were released into a room full of only mosquitoes. In the wild, bats eat whatever's most available and most nutritious — and mosquitoes are neither large nor energy-dense.

"Bats do eat mosquitoes — just not at the rates often cited. Studies of wild bat diets show mosquitoes are a minor component for most species, though little brown bats are the exception when mosquitoes are abundant."

How Many Mosquitoes Do Bats Actually Eat?

Research using DNA analysis of bat guano (droppings) has confirmed mosquitoes show up in the diets of many North American bats — but usually as a small percentage. Larger insects like moths and beetles provide far more calories per hunt. A little brown bat might eat several hundred insects a night, and a meaningful portion could be mosquitoes in wet areas during summer. But "1,000 per hour" is lab conditions, not reality.

That said — bats still dramatically reduce local mosquito populations in combination with other factors. Encouraging bats near your property will measurably reduce insect pressure, just not by the mythical numbers.

What Do Fruit Bats Eat?

Fruit bats — also called flying foxes or megabats — are tropical species that eat fruit, nectar, pollen, and occasionally flowers and leaves. They're found across Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Pacific islands. There are no fruit bats native to the mainland United States or Canada.

Common fruit bat foods include:

• Figs (a global staple — many fig species depend entirely on fruit bats for seed dispersal)
• Mangoes, guavas, bananas
• Dates and papayas
• Wild tropical fruits most humans never encounter
• Flowers and nectar when fruit is scarce

Unlike insectivorous bats, most fruit bats don't use echolocation. They have large eyes and excellent vision, and they find fruit by smell and sight. Fruit bats are critical tropical pollinators and seed dispersers — research from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service confirms many rainforest ecosystems would collapse without them.

Nectar and Pollen Feeders

A smaller group of bats specializes in nectar and pollen — the "hummingbirds of the night." In the American Southwest, the lesser long-nosed bat and Mexican long-tongued bat migrate north each summer to feed on agave and saguaro cactus flowers. They're the primary pollinators of both plants.

Nectar bats have long tongues with brush-like tips specifically adapted to drink from deep-throated flowers. Pollen caught on their fur is transferred from flower to flower as they feed — making them essential pollinators for species that bloom at night.

"Without nectar-feeding bats, there would be no tequila. Agave plants — the source of tequila and mezcal — depend on bats for pollination."

What Do Vampire Bats Eat?

Only three bat species drink blood, and none of them live in the United States. Vampire bats are found only in Mexico, Central America, and South America. They're small — about 3 inches long — and they don't kill their hosts. A vampire bat lands near a sleeping animal, makes a tiny painless cut with razor-sharp teeth, and laps up blood for about 20 minutes.

Vampire bats are also famous for a remarkable behavior: they share food with colony mates that didn't successfully feed. A bat returning with blood will regurgitate some for a hungry roost mate — a true reciprocal altruism system found in almost no other mammal.

How Bats Find Their Food

Most insect-eating bats hunt using echolocation — emitting high-frequency sound pulses and listening for the echoes that bounce off prey. A little brown bat can emit up to 200 pulses per second when closing on an insect, pinpointing a mosquito in complete darkness at 10 feet away.

Different bat species use different hunting strategies:

• Aerial hawkers — like the little brown bat — catch flying insects on the wing
• Gleaners — like the long-eared bat — pluck insects and spiders off leaves and tree bark
• Trawlers — like the fishing bat — skim the surface of water to catch fish and large insects
• Foliage hunters — ambush prey resting on vegetation

Seasonal Diet Shifts

Insect-eating bats in temperate climates face a major problem each fall: insects disappear. North American bats have evolved two main strategies to deal with this.

Hibernation. Species like little brown bats, big brown bats, and eastern pipistrelles enter torpor in caves and mines, dropping their body temperature near freezing and slowing their heart rate from 400 beats per minute to as few as 10. They live off stored fat reserves built up during the last weeks of insect abundance in late summer — which is why late-summer insect populations are so critical to bat survival.

Migration. Other species like the hoary bat, eastern red bat, and Mexican free-tailed bat migrate south to warmer regions where insects are still active. Mexican free-tailed bats travel hundreds of miles each fall to central Mexico.

During active months, bat diets shift with insect availability — more moths and beetles in midsummer, more mayflies and midges near water bodies in spring and early summer.

How to Attract Bats to Your Property

If you want bats eating insects on your land — and you should, given what they do for mosquito and pest populations — the three highest-impact things you can do are:

• Install a bat house. Properly built, properly mounted, and oriented correctly (south or southeast-facing, 10+ feet high). See our complete bat house guide for specifications.
• Keep water on the landscape. Bats need to drink in flight. A pond, pool, stock tank, or even a wide bird bath dramatically increases their use of a property.
• Stop using outdoor pesticides. Every insect you kill is a bat meal removed. Properties that avoid broad-spectrum insecticides support far more bats.

Don't expect results overnight. It can take one to three seasons for bats to discover and adopt a new bat house — but once they do, they'll return year after year.