You are perhaps scared of bats. It's understandable; they get a lot of bad press. Plus, there's the whole Dracula thing.

In reality though, bats are very important to the environment. They are pollinators and seed dispersers, without whom we'd have a lot less fruit and trees. They also eat an astonishing amount of insects -- enough to be worth some $3 billion a year to U.S. farmers alone .

And your concerns about disease are not entirely outlandish, but should also not be overblown. Worldwide, an estimated about 300 people a year die from rabies contracted from bats, according to the group Bat World .

If the science, the economics and the delicious fruit aren't enough to convince you that bats are our friends, perhaps you need to get a load of Maggie the fruit bat here.