Oklahoma’s wildlife brings fun to Halloween

From spiders to bats and other night flyers, Oklahoma is home to an abundance of iconic Halloween-related wildlife. Let’s take a look at some of these “creepy” creatures as we get into the Halloween spirit.

Bats — Oklahoma’s most iconic Halloween animal is bat! The Mexican free-tail bat, declared the state flying mammal in 2006, is our most abundant (in terms of numbers) bat.

“Oklahoma has 23 species and sub-species of bats,” said Melynda Hickman, recently retired biologist for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation. “The Mexican free-tail, cave myotis, Eastern red bat and big brown bat are among the most common bats in Oklahoma.”

While many people believe that bats are scary, dirty or that they carry diseases, they actually provide a valuable ecological and economic service to the state.

“It is estimated that bats in northwest Oklahoma may save farmers up to $3 million a year by consuming significant numbers of agricultural pests,” said Hickman.

At night, bats consume at least half their body weight in flying insects such as mosquitoes, moths, flying ants and beetles. The Mexican free-tailed bats that use the Selman Bat Cave in northwest Oklahoma each summer consume 20,000 pounds of flying insects each night. Many of these insects, such as corn earworms, damage crops.

Make plans next summer to attend a Selman Bat Watch tour guided by the ODWC and see millions of bats fly over your head and off into the twilight sky at Alabaster Caverns State Park near Woodward.

On some evenings, these bats can be seen on radar as they exit caves and head out looking for insect snacks. It takes a lot of bats to create a radar image!

Depending on the type of bat, Oklahoma bats not only use caves, but also trees, bridges and other human structures such as buildings for their daytime roosts.

Designs for such houses and lots more batty info can be found on Bat Conservation Internationals website www.batcon.org.

Vultures — Decomposers like turkey vultures may not have the most glamorous ecological story, but these scavenging birds do have several traits that make them well-adapted to their eek-worthy role. And this makes them a great Halloween creature.

Turkey vultures largely feed on wild or domestic carrion, with a slant toward dead mammals. The bald head helps keep feathers from fouling while the birds feed on decaying carcasses and the open sinuses may also help with post-meal cleanup.

Turkey vultures rely on their highly developed sense of smell to find food; once the carcass is found, the birds may gorge and then go days without feeding. The birds’ strong stomach acid helps with digestion and may lead to a resistance to bacteria and viruses that may be present in the carcasses turkey vultures feed upon.

Throughout recorded history spiders have been regarded generally as creeping, crawling, loathsome, and venomous beasts. Folklore, ignorance, superstition, and the bizarre appearance of the spiders themselves have contributed to these impressions.

Spiders — Folklore would have some believe that all spiders are venomous. The facts are that, except for two very small groups (families), all spiders do possess venom glands which void through small holes near the tips of their fangs. However, most spiders do not bite humans, and with a few exceptions, spider venoms are not harmful to humans or other mammals.

Spiders are important predators which help keep insect and some other arthropod pest populations in check. This beneficial role far outweighs the hazard posed by the few spiders that occasionally bite humans.

Some people have a phobia of spiders (arachnophobia). Some of these fears of spiders are because people believe they are aggressive and will attack humans with little or no provocation. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Only one spider in the world is considered aggressive—the funnel-web spider of Australia, Atrax robustus, which reputedly will attack without provocation. No other spider is overly aggressive unless cornered, injured, or otherwise overly provoked. It is true that many North American spiders will rush over their webs to investigate any disturbance. This is a natural hunting reaction, as many species of spiders employ webs to entrap other animals for food.

Fatalities from spider bites are rare, and the consequences of the bite may range from trivial to severe. The severity of the reaction to spider venom is dictated by many factors. The amount of venom injected may vary from almost none to a full dose, depending on the site of the bite, the length of time the fangs are in the tissues, and the quantity of venom injected. Also, the reaction of different individuals to the same type and amount of venom may vary widely, since age, general state of the victim’s health, and differences in genetics would likely determine the severity of reaction.

In Oklahoma, only two spiders, the brown recluse and black widow, are considered dangerous to people. However, tarantulas, jumping spiders, wolf spiders, garden spiders, and numerous other species found in the State are frequently mistaken for venomous spiders. These spiders may be formidable, scary or repulsive to some, but to most people their bite is less harmful than a bee sting.