1in1t

Live a life as a bat

EpicOdds: 1 in 31.3 billion

Bats are about two-thirds of all wild mammals by number. About 56 billion bats are alive right now. Your odds of being reborn as one are 1 in 31.

Sources: Greenspoon et al. 2023, “The global biomass of wild mammals”, PNAS 120 (about 56 billion bats).

Your life

  1. Day 1 · You are born in a cave in Texas, a single pup, about a quarter of your mother’s weight.
  2. Week 1 · You cling to your mother in a crowd of thousands. She finds you among them by your voice and smell.
  3. Week 4 · Your first flight, at dusk.
  4. Month 2 · You hunt by sound, calling and listening for echoes, catching insects in the dark.
  5. Winter · Insects vanish.
  6. Year 2 · You return to the roost where you were born and raise a pup of your own.
  7. Year 8 · Bats live long for their size. Some live more than 30 years.

Get rebornEvery number and its source

Questions

What are the odds of being reborn as a bat?

Odds: 1 in 31.3 billion. Bats are about two-thirds of all wild mammals by number. (Greenspoon et al. 2023, “The global biomass of wild mammals”, PNAS 120 (about 56 billion bats).)

What are my odds of being reborn as a human?

About 1 in 210 billion if any animal can be drawn. There are roughly 8.2 billion people, but around 1.3 sextillion copepods, 440 quintillion soil nematodes and 10 quintillion insects. Among mammals and birds only, the odds improve to about 1 in 21.

What is the most common animal on Earth?

By head count, tiny crustaceans called copepods (about 1.3 × 10²¹, an order-of-magnitude estimate), then soil nematodes (about 4.4 × 10²⁰, van den Hoogen et al. 2019). That is why the true-odds draw almost always makes you something small.

The odds, animal by animal

Copepod Soil nematode Insect Ant Antarctic krill Honey bee Fish Wild bird Chicken Wild rodent Human House sparrow Cow Dog Elephant Blue whale Giant panda