To create your own book about bats, you’ll need to figure out where bats belong in the tree of life. Are bats birds, like parrots and chickadees? Or are bats mammals, like dogs, rabbits, and bears? Or are bats something else entirely? You’ll examine four vertebrate groups to figure out where bats fit.

• Fish
• Birds
• Amphibians
• Mammals

Check out fascinating facts about each group and use your brainpower to discover the answer.

Start

Bats, sharks, and frogs have something in common with elephants, eagles, and even humans – each one has a backbone. A backbone is made of a series of separate bones called vertebrae. Joints between the vertebrae allow the bones to move, so the backbone is flexible. Animals that have a backbone are called vertebrates.

There are about 40,000 different kinds of vertebrates on Earth today and they’re all descended from the very first simple vertebrate creatures that lived on Earth about 500 million years ago. Scientists group vertebrates based on common characteristics.