Bats Have Always Been Bats | The Institute for Creation Research

Bats Have Always Been Bats
Bats have been in the news lately,1 but bats themselves are not new—they were created on Day 5 of Creation Week, along with other flying creatures.

Bats are a large and fascinating group of flying mammals. They include 1,240 species. Not surprisingly, the fossil record shows bats have always been bats. They suddenly appear in a most un-Darwinian manner.

According to a recent evolutionary publication, “Bats pop up in the fossil record around 50 million years ago.”1 The article continues,

Scientists are left with some big questions. For one thing: The 50-million-year-old bat specimens are already recognizable as bats, so where did they come from? When, where, why and how the first bats become airborne is another mystery buried by Deep Time.1

Mammals in general also have a cryptic origin as well as their diversification, “While the origin of mammals has provided one set of puzzles, the diversification of mammals is also ripe with questions.”2

Two bat fossils found in early Eocene sediments in Wyoming (Icaronycteris and Onychonycteris) are still 100% bats. In fact, they are already designed with their “feet … turned backwards so that these early bats could hang upside down as modern bats do.”3

This is indeed an enigma for Darwinists. Think of all the transitions that must occur to turn a creature such as a rodent4 into a bat. The front legs must slowly turn into membranous wings with an amazing aerodynamic ability. Biosonar (or echolocation) must evolve where there was no biosonar. Is it any wonder that “the evolution of echolocation in bats has been hard to resolve.”5

Non-evolutionists predict that the origin of bats will always be one of evolution’s greatest puzzles, because bats were created as bats on Day 5 of Creation Week just thousands of years ago.

References
1. Black, R. Why Bats Are One of Evolution’s Greatest Puzzles. Smithsonian Magazine. Published on smithsonianmag.com April 21, 2020, accessed April 23, 2020. Bats have been discussed in recent world news. See Areddy, J. T. China Bat Expert Says Her Wuhan Lab Wasn’t Source of New Coronavirus: Internationally respected virologist who sequences bat viruses finds herself in spotlight over Covid-19. Wall Street Journal. Posted on WSJ.com April 21, 2020, accessed April 23, 2020.
2. Black, R. Why Bats Are One of Evolution’s Greatest Puzzles. Smithsonian Magazine. Published on smithsonianmag.com April 21, 2020, accessed April 23, 2020.
3. Smith, K. 2015. Placental Evolution in Therian Mammals. In Great Transformations in Vertebrate Evolution. K. Dial, et al, ed. University of Chicago Press, 205.
4. Benton, M. 2015. Vertebrate Paleontology, 4th Edition. Wily Blackwell, 376.
5. Sherwin, F. 2016. The Rodent Record. Acts & Facts. 45(4).
6. Benton, 376.

*Mr. Sherwin is Research Associate is at ICR. He earned his master’s in zoology from the University of Northern Colorado.
The Latest
NEWS
May 2025 ICR Wallpaper
"Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." (Romans...

NEWS
Acoustic Communication in Animals
We are all familiar with vocalizations in the animal world. For example, dogs bark, birds sing, frogs croak, and whales send forth their own distinct...

ACTS & FACTS
Creation Kids: Crystals!
by Michael Stamp and Susan Windsor* You're never too young to be a creation scientist and explore our Creator's world. Kids, discover...

APOLOGETICS
Playing Chess with Little Furry Critters
God’s multifarious and marvelous designs for basic creature needs are so innovatively clever and providentially purposeful that Christ’s...

ACTS & FACTS
Credit Only Our Creator
History was my favorite subject as a young kid. But it always puzzled me when my teachers said, “We study history so that we don’t repeat...

ACTS & FACTS
Genomic Tandem Repeats: Where Repetition Is Purposely Adaptive
Tandem repeats (TRs) are short sequences of DNA repeated over and over again like the DNA letter sequence TACTACTAC, which is a repetition of TAC three...

ACTS & FACTS
Dinosaur National Monument: Fossil Graveyard of the Flood
Straddling the border of Utah and Colorado, Dinosaur National Monument (DNM) is one of the richest exposures of dinosaur fossils in the world.1...

ACTS & FACTS
The Transforming Influence of Genesis: Worker Dignity and Safety
When Pharisees questioned the Lord Jesus about marriage, He answered by quoting Genesis 1:27: “But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made...

NEWS
Giant ''Meg'' Shark: Longer and Leaner?
Fossil remains of the giant shark Otodus megalodon have been found in Miocene1 and Pliocene2 rock layers, which ICR scientists...

CREATION.LIVE PODCAST
Searching for Truth Across the Globe | Creation.Live Podcast:...
How can we bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the truth of creation to others outside our small spheres of influence?   Host...