The American robin, hermit thrushes, solitaires, and fieldfares are all thrushes, as are bluebirds, and they all have the same kind of diet. Bats provide us with wonderful service by consuming a significant quantity of other flying insects and thereby aiding in the management of some harmful and dangerous pests, despite their undeserved reputation as something to be feared. Their area of expertise is organic insect control.īats are quite helpful tiny critters, even though some people think they are ferocious mosquito eaters. Crop-destroying moths, cucumber beetles, flies, and gnats are a few of their preferred prey.
Bats are opportunistic, and everyone profits from their lack of discretion. Undoubtedly, their taste for mosquitoes improves the comfort of a backyard. Per bat typically consumes 6,000 to 8,000 insects each night, and they can consume up to 1,200 mosquito-sized insects every hour. Most bat species thrive on an insect-based diet. In fact, research on bats in the wild has revealed that most of the insects they eat are beetles, wasps, and moths, with mosquitoes making up less than 1% of their overall diet. This essentially means that they will consume any accessible food source, even mosquitoes, but they do not go out looking for them explicitly. In truth, bats are opportunistic feeders like other natural mosquito predators. Although the purple martin is a stunning bird, it is likely that it would prefer to catch a nice, juicy Japanese beetle or any other large-bodied flying bug over a thin little mosquito, like other natural predators that occasionally eat mosquitoes.Īnother naturally occurring mosquito predator frequently referred to as a voracious feeder of mosquitoes, is the bat. Mosquitoes are typically most active in the hours before and after dusk, when our friends the martins are typically feeding in the trees, well above the most of mosquito activity. In reality, during the day, purple martins typically eat larger flying insects like June bugs, moths, bees, butterflies, wasps, and, regrettably, dragonflies, another creature that naturally preys on mosquitoes. The founder of the Purple Martin Conservation Association (PMCA), ornithologist James Hill, states in a quote from the AMCA's frequently asked questions page that "the number of mosquitoes that martins eat is relatively little, and they certainly don't manage them." In-depth research has revealed that the percentage of mosquitoes in martins' diet ranges from 0 to 3 percent. Yes, they do eat mosquitoes, but not nearly enough to be considered an effective method of reducing mosquito populations. Purple Martin is a classic example of a predator of mosquitoes that eat mosquitoes whose capacity to decrease mosquito populations has frequently been drastically overstated.
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