Just curious is all. How do you know they were eating skeeters and not some other, possibly larger insect?
Not sure at all.
The mosquitos were eating me, so I assumed that the bats were eating the evil skeeters.
I believe the bats I frequently watch are Little Brown Bats (Myotis lucifugus). There is a chance they may be Evening Bats (Nycticeius humeralis)
(Or I have both kinds and cannot distinguish them on the wing. However, I believe I am only observing a single species.)
The bats in my area come out when there is still a fair bit of light, so I enjoy watching their antics. They seem to operate from about 5' up to about 20'. I could not see a mayfly hatch, or moths, or any larger insects. But my eyes are certainly starting to get older!
The literature says they consume mosquitos (and other flying insects), but that seems like a very scant meal to me with very few calories. I assume that bats must be able to convert almost all of the calories in insect chitin to useful nutrients - or they would starve.
I was kind of hoping we had an actual bat expert in the forum that would fill in the gaps in my understanding of how bats can survive on such seemingly small rations.
P.S. I have actually held one of these bats in my hands. However, that is a story for another time, but does involve a bat, a fishing net, and the chandelier in my dining room. The small bats in my area do seem impossibly fragile when you examine one very closely.
