Trust Us, You Don't Want To Be Caught In A Bat Tornado

You couldn't get us within 100 miles of this place, but we'll gladly watch 20 million bats in a feeding frenzy from the safety of our computer screen.

As for Kelly Sweet, the National Geographic producer who gets caught in a bat tornado in the video above, hats off to her. However, we recommend she keep her hat on. "You could not safely stand there because they will fly into you and get stuck in your hair," she says in the YouTube description.

The clip, posted earlier this month, features a guano-load of Mexican free-tailed bats, also known as Tadarida brasiliensis, flying out of Bracken Cave near San Antonio, Texas.

It's home to the largest bat colony in the world, National Geographic says, and it hosts one heckuva buffet outside. On this hunt, which happens nightly between March and October before the bats migrate south, they consumed 200 tons of insects, the video says.

Each bat can consume three times its body weight, according to Untamed Science.

This isn't some fleeting all-you-can-eat. Mexican free-tailed bats can live up to 18 years  to enjoy the bug cuisine, according to an Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum fact sheet.

Bon appetit! 

H/T Laughing Squid

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