DULUTH -They’re mysterious nocturnal creatures, but the Lake Superior Zoo is shedding light on their lives. They're bats - and FOX 21 went along for a daily bat feeding at the zoo.

Inside their 80 to 90-degree nocturnal home, the bats are ready to feed. 

"I’m going to go in through this door right here," said zookeeper Maicie Sykes.  Sykes is in charge of daily feedings for these flying mammals.  "They will fly around very quickly; you will be able to see that they have a very high metabolism, so they can easily eat up to 100 percent of their body weight every day."

Sykes is talking about the Seba fruit bat from South America. 

"They are probably the most common bat in Latin America; they average a weight of about 19 grams," Sykes said.

On the menu today, a mixture of fruits and greens. 

"I just put it down and leave," she said. "They typically wait until I’m gone to start feeding; they start flying around everywhere."

The African straw-colored fruit bats were also fed a variety of fruits and greens, and unlike the Seba bats who use echolocation to find their food, straw bats use their sense of smell and eyesight.

"You can see they move around a lot by using their front toe," Sykes said. "They are very expressive and people tend to like them after they spend a little time watching and they can see all their facial expressions and movements. ...

"They tend to squabble a lot; they are kind of like a large family so they make lots of noise."

Sykes says the African straw bats live in massive colonies of up to a million individuals, though you'll find only 18 at the Lake Superior Zoo.

"A lot of times I get the question, 'what's it like to be in there,' or a lot of people say, 'you couldn't pay me $100 to be in there,' but it's really not as scary as everyone thinks it is," Sykes said. "It's fine if you move nice and slow; they will stay out of your way. ... It’s really interesting to have all these bats looking down on you or flying around."

You can watch the bat feeding along with other nocturnal animals starting at 10:30 a.m. every day at the Lake Superior Zoo.

For more information, go to www.lszoo.org.