15 Million Bats Call This One Place In Texas Home Sweet Home

Everything in Texas is over the top and huge. Everywhere you look, there's something to brag about in the Lone Star State. If you're one of those people who think bats are adorable, Texas even has something big for you.

15 million bat call one place in Texas home sweet home.

Get our free mobile app

In case you didn't know, Texas just so happens to be the home of the biggest bat colony there is. It's not just the biggest in Texas. It's not just the biggest in the US.

Texas is home to the world's largest bat colony. It's made up of over 15 million bats. That's a really tough number to wrap your head around. That's more than the population of Los Angeles. They all live in one place.

Bracken Cave Preserve near San Antonio, Texas.

According to Texas Parks and Wildlife, this massive colony of bats eats 100 tons of moths every summer night. I'm not sure how many moths that is, but 100 tons is an insane measurement to use when talking about them.

The bats that call Bracken Cave Preserve home are Mexican free-tailed bats. The female bats hang out here (no pun intended) to give birth and raise their progeny, every single year. Think of it as a massive outdoor maternity ward.

The sight of these bats emerging from the cave to go hunt at night has been referred to as a "tornado of bats." For some reason, that strikes me as utterly terrifying. Bruce Wayne just had to deal with a normal amount of bats. Can you imagine how screwed up Batman would have been if he had fallen into that cave as a kid?

Unfortunately, the bat flight season has ended for 2023. There's always next year. There's also this live feed you can watch streaming on YouTube.

Once again, the Lone Star State goes above and beyond just to make sure that we can keep on saying everything is bigger in Texas. That, apparently, includes our bat colonies as well.