DALE DRINNON: The Panda bat

Just one post today. Dale is still having serious problems with Blogger.

The find of a lifetime: Bizarre 'panda bat' discovered in South Sudan

RELEASE THE BATS

In recent decades scientific data, particularly ringing recoveries, have uncovered some of the migration secrets of many species of European bat. For example, we now know that at least four species of bat (Nathusius' Pipistrelle, Noctule, Leisler's Bat and Parti-coloured Bat) migrate vast distances from northeastern Europe to the southwest of the continent to spend the winter. Through ringing recoveries, certain individuals have been shown to fly huge distances, with record one-way autumn migrations of Nathusius' Pipistrelle and Parti-coloured Bat totalling 1,905 km (Latvia to France) and 1,787 km (Russia to France) respectively.

Read on

It has to be done....

BECOME A BAT ADVOCATE

White-nose syndrome has killed more than 1 million bats in North America over the past five years, from Nova Scotia to Tennessee; the fungus linked to the disease has been found as far west as western Oklahoma. The bat malady is spreading at staggering speeds and several species are facing imminent regional extinction. It is now confirmed or suspected in 19 states and four Canadian provinces, and could soon jump to the West. Meanwhile scientists have determined that the loss of insect-eating bats could cost American agriculture $3.7 billion to $53 billion per year in lost pest-control services.

The federal government has been painfully slow to take precautionary steps like cave closures to keep humans from spreading the disease. Please join us in speaking up for bats.

Become a Bat Advocate and send a letter today telling the U.S. Forest Service to take immediate steps to close caves and mines in the West, where the spread of white-nose syndrome by peop le can still be prevented.

Visit http://action.biologicaldiversity.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=6898 to take action now.

BAT BOMBS OF WW2

Once again the magnificent Beachcombing blog never ceases to amaze. If you are reading this Naomi, then I would suggest that you don't.

http://beachcombing.wordpress.com/2010/11/28/bats-fight-japan/

LONG EARED BAT ROADKILL

This long-eared bat was unfortunate enough to fly into the windscreen of John and Dawn's (authors of the new Encyclopaedia of British UFOs) car. Sadly, it did not survive, but it is an extraordinary picture....

LINDSAY SELBY: Decline of the Vampire Bat

Vampire bats are not exactly cryptozoological but are creatures of legend and myths from all over the world, especially Europe. Vampire bats do exist, but only in Central and South America, not in Transylvania. The three species are: the common vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus), the white-winged vampire bat (Diaemus, or Desmodus, youngi) and the hairy-legged vampire bat (Diphylla ecaudata). So where does the name come from? 'Bat' comes from Old Norse 'ledhrblaka' or 'leather flapper.' It became 'bakka' and then 'bat.' 'Vampire' comes from Magyar 'vampir,' meaning 'witch', not blood-sucker as such. Bats are in the single order Chiroptera (hand-winged) and are thought to have appeared n the late Palaeocene or early Cretaceous (Altringham 1996). There is poor representation of bats in the fossil record. The bats have a wingspan of approximately eight inches and a body about three inches long. They tend to feed on the blood of large birds, cattle, horses and pigs. However, they don’t suck the blood of their prey but use their teeth, to make small cuts in the skin of a sleeping animal. The bats' saliva contains a chemical that keeps the blood from clotting. The bats then lap up the blood that oozes from the wound. Another chemical in their saliva numbs the animal's skin and keeps them from waking up. A vampire bat finds its prey with echo-location (like radar), smell and sound. They fly about one meter above the ground. Then they use special heat sensors in their noses to find veins that are close to the skin.

They live in colonies, which have quite strong social bonds, grooming each other and recognising their fellows with voice and smell. The structure is imperative to their survival, as there are many nights when a bat may not find a host to feed on. The hungry bats are fed from others through a process of regurgitation. If vampire bats do not get their share of blood on a regular basis, they rapidly deteriorate. A bat may be close to starvation within 2-3 days (Altringham 1996). In the wild vampire bats live to about 9 years but can reach 20 years in captivity. Vampire bats mate all year round. The bat may consume up to 60% of its body weight in blood and it only needs the red blood cells; it will begin excreting plasma before its meal is over. With a specialised stomach and kidneys the vampire rapidly removes the plasma as it may take up to twenty minutes to the bat to finish its meal (Altringham 1996).

Central and South America are alive with superstitions about the vampire bat. It is said that bats are dirty germ-carriers feeding on human blood or that they have supernatural powers allowing them to change shapes from man to bat. While these legends may sound strange, there is recorded evidence of human hosts. Glover Allen (1939) wrote about bats feeding on humans, “while travelling down the Amazon valley, he (Dr William Farabee) awoke one morning to find that a vampire during the night had gouged a small piece of skin from the tip of his nose and had evidently feasted while he slept, for the wound was still bleeding slightly”. Not all tales are negative; bloodletting has traditionally held healing qualities.

Western literature has embraced the vampire bat, making it popular in fiction with Dracula stories as they did not appear in early vampire myth. The European folklore of vampires did not incorporate the bat probably because they did not exist in Europe. Apart from the captive animals in zoos, vampire bats have apparently never been found outside of the Americas. See articles below about the vampire bat as disease carrier.

Vampire bats blamed for Venezuela rabies outbreak

By Ian James in Caracas, Venezuela Sunday, 10 August 2008

see : http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/vampire-bats-blamed-for-venezuela-rabies-outbreak-889772.html

At least 38 Venezuelans have died as a result of a suspected outbreak of rabies spread by bites from vampire bats. Laboratory tests have yet to confirm the cause, but the symptoms point to rabies, say researchers from the University of California at Berkeley and other medical experts. At least 38 Warao Indians have died since June 2007, 16 of them since the start of June this year, according to a report that the Berkeley researchers, an anthropologist and public health specialist, and indigenous leaders provided to Venezuelan officials last week. All the victims died within two to seven days after the onset of symptoms. One village, Mukuboina, lost eight of its roughly 80 inhabitants – all of them children. Health officials investigating the outbreak are now planning to distribute mosquito nets to prevent bat bites and send a medical boat to provide treatment in the remote villages on the Orinoco river delta.Outbreaks of rabies spread by vampire bats are a problem in various tropical areas of South America, including Brazil and Peru. The common vampire bat, which feeds on mammals' blood, swoops down and generally approaches its sleeping prey on the ground. The bat then makes a small incision with its teeth, and an anticoagulant in its saliva keeps the blood flowing while it drinks the blood. Symptoms of rabies include fever, tingling in the feet followed by paralysis, and an extreme fear of water.

And also this article from 2005: http://www.livescience.com/animals/051104_vampire_bats.html

Excerpt from article :Bites from rabid vampire bats were blamed for 23 deaths in northern Brazil over the past two months, according to local newspaper reports. Many scientists fear such encounters will become more common as the bats' forests homes are destroyed and they are lured towards cattle ranches and farms where livestock and humans make easy prey. A common one is that the bats bite the throats of their human victims. The truth is a little less glamorous."They're more likely to go for a person's big toe," French told LiveScience. "There's a good blood supply there and the bite is usually less noticeable."Also, instead of sucking the blood of their victims as is generally believed, vampire bats make a small tear in their victim's skin and lap at the blood as it oozes out. When the bats have finished their meal, they're often so engorged with blood that they're too heavy to fly. The bats have to crawl off their sleeping victims and go someplace to digest their meal before returning home. A lot of human deaths could be prevented if people take simple precautions, French said.

Ker Than, LiveScience Staff Writer posted: 04 November 2005

It seems such a shame that these animals could be made extinct by humans destroying their homes and forcing them into a position where their hunting makes them open to being eradicated. They will then be true cryptozoological legends , and I for one hope that doesn’t happen.

Altringham, John D. 1996. Bats, Biology and Behavior Oxford University Press; University of Leeds, New York.

Allen, Glover Morrill. 1939. Bats Dover Publications; Harvard University, New York.

SO WE HAVE A NEW MAMMAL

Britain now has seventeen resident bat species plus another four known only as vagrants. Alcathoe's bat was only described as a separate species in Greece in 2001 and until now, was thought to have too weak a flight to have been able to cross the channel. However, relatively large breeding colonies have been found in Sussex and Yorkshire, and speculation is rising that it may be present here in relatively large numbers.

So how did it get here?

Back when the CFZ was no more than a conceptual glimmer in my eye, during the early 1990s I was working on a book (which I still haven't finished) about the mystery animals of Devon. In it I mentioned the Nathusius pipstrelle, a species then only known as a very rare vagrant most commonly found in Poland.

Since then this species has been found to be breeding in the UK in some numbers. The more I look into such things I realise that - like the other flying creatures for whom the English Channel is no great boundary, such as birds and butterflies - the precise status of the bat species on the British list has got to be seen as being in a state of continual flux. If nothing else, this keeps the cryptozoologists on their toes.

Good, huh?

LAWRIE WILLIAMS: A Rainforest Retreat and a Little Bat

Yesterday I paid an all-too-rare visit to my home away from home, an old house I take care of up in the rainforest way up in the hills. From there I'm well placed to seek hidden creatures and I know I should do more of it, but life keeps getting in the way.

The place is a somewhat spartan house. It is unpainted in the old style and the only electrical wiring is a 12V system I installed based on a solar panel and some old car batteries. It is the simplicity of this place that appeals to me.
This is the room where I sit at a table and listen to the solar powered radio while I have a cup of tea and contemplate the rainforest.




BTW, that forest you can see out the window is the actual habitat of the white lemuroid ringtail possum, now suspected to be extinct. I plan to do some spotlighting this winter.

So yesterday I had my cuppa then I went outside and devoted some hours to keeping the jungle back, for this little house is completely surrounded by rainforest. And a carpet snake had been inside and there were numerous smashed jars on the floor so there was plenty to do. Then I stopped for lunch and another cup of tea.

As I was tidying my stuff away I became aware that something was not quite right.

I turned, and right there at eye level was a tiny bat! All the time I had been there I had not seen him!




I'd even eaten an apple and an orange and fastened the stickers to the wall right next to him. He had not moved; I had not noticed him! No wonder he did not move. He had died and become mummified. I am not sure why, since I had made sure bats can get in and out of the place. I knew bats lived there because when I first started using the place some years ago I had taken an old straw hat off the wall and a bat had flown out of it!

To me it is an illustration of the challenge of spotting creatures that have evolved so as not to be seen. Well, at least the ringtail possums are white; maybe I'll notice them.

LAWRIE WILLIAMS: Flying Foxes

Curious bat-like creatures feature in cryptozoological lore. Here are some tales about a known species, the flying fox.

Over the past 40 years I have witnessed a serious decline in their numbers, and have even participated in field studies where groups of people have surrounded where they live just before dark, and then proceeded to try to count them. It is not easy because they have a habit of coming and going a number of times, probably because they do not know what the people on the ground are up to.

The pressure on flying foxes is because of the stupidity of Queensland Government bureaucrats and politicians. In trying to protect commercial crops of bananas they have a 'biosecurity' policy that calls for the destruction of all 'wild' stands of bananas, mainly the 'lady finger' variety. 30 years ago Queenslanders and flying foxes enjoyed an abundance of bananas that looked after themselves and produced a continual supply of free food. Then the government started destroying them so there would be no hosts for any pests or diseases that might compromise
their commercial crops.

I tried to change that policy but got short shrift from the Labour Party, which ought to know better. They just countered that the banana industry employs 20 000 people and could not be put at risk. The fact that bananas previously provided free food for more than a million Queenslanders and untold numbers of flying foxes and other native animals meant nothing to these idiots. And of course there was a secondary motive - to force people to pay for bananas dipped in poison instead of getting free wholesome bananas straight off a tree in the back yard.

They also told me the lady finger banana was not a native plant. True enough. Before Captain Cook there were native varieties of Musa spp. and there were also vast stands of mature native trees that bore incredible crops of food - nearly all gone now because of clear-felling and rapacious timber harvesting practices. The lady finger bananas filled the gap but now they have also been all but wiped out by ignorance and greed. Tough on the flying foxes, who then 'attack' commercial stands of bananas and get electrified, poisoned, shot, etc. And many more die caught on power lines and on barbed wire fences. One big improvement was to move the power lines apart so that flying foxes could not get zapped by reaching from one line to the next.

Farmers need to learn more respect for the flying fox. They serve as important pollinators and they control insect pests that would otherwise destroy their crops.

The individual flying fox is certainly capable of complex behaviour. One aboriginal informant insists he once saw a flying fox drop the carcass of some sort of small animal on the ground, having apparently sucked out the contents. Most experts would say no way; flying foxes
are strictly vegetarian. Well, they are habitual rapists as well, so I would not put anything past them.

My sons and I used to live in an old picture theatre. At one side was a peach tree that had its roots in the septic system so its fruit was juicy and succulent. Flying foxes came from far and wide to get the fruit and squabble and swear at one another. The bandicoots also fed on that tree.

One in particular lived on the other side of the theatre and used to run along the footpath, collect a peach, and then run back with his treasure. One night we went down into the foyer and opened the front door. Our little part chihuahua dog ran outside. Immediately there was a great deal of snarling and the dog came rushing back inside. I went outside and saw on the ground what looked like a half-unfurled umbrella trying to sort itself out.

A moment later it got on its feet and flew away. I don't know what the kerfuffle was all about. I believe the flying fox thought the little dog was that pesky bandicoot and it had attacked her either to keep her away or perhaps to make her drop the peach it thought she would be
carrying. Anyway, it got a big surprise that night.

Flying foxes are now known to be hosts of the lyssavirus, which can be fatal. This has been tough on them. They cop enough persecution already because they are seen as despoilers of crops and makers of unpleasant noises and odours. And on top of that our culture portrays them as being somewhat demonic. Certainly, if you have them in a fruit tree near your bedroom window quarreling all night with possums, or come out in the morning and your mangoes are all over the ground each with one bite mark in it, you cannot help but feel there is some truth in this.

In Captain Cook's diaries he records that one crew member came back to the ship very shaken up. He had come upon a flying fox in the undergrowth and it had scared the living daylights out of him. He actually thought it was a demon. (Of course real demons are long gone, the last
reliable picture I have seen of one is from a Celtic image made in the time of the Roman empire. I doubt if they were any more wicked than flying foxes; just different and therefore targets for persecution.)

Truth to tell, only two people have died from lyssavirus since 1996. Compare and contrast that with the millions of bats that die at human hands. But it is a new pretext for people to persecute them and although protected there are people that routinely kill them. What good is a government that protects an animal but follows a policy that leads to them being starved to death?

On top of that, habitat destruction has led to them setting up their communal nurseries alongside open pastures. Shellback ticks then get on them and cause them to die a horrid death from paralysis. Many people struggle to gather and nurse orphan bats, which then recover only to be killed by people with a redneck mentality.

I have known many people who have cared for flying foxes. My big sister told me she grew very attached to hers, and said they were very affectionate and endlessly entertaining.

There are parallels with the fate of the aborigines, who were harassed by the squatters despite the laws, and who found respite only by leaving their own land and taking up residence near townships where they lived in poverty but at least were relatively safe.

For the same reason flying foxes often start nurseries where they can be safe. The pictures show a flying fox nursery right in the centre of Cairns. Notices under the trees ask people to alert the staff in the council building if they see any baby flying foxes on the ground or clinging to the undergrowth. They are safe to handle only if you have been vaccinated for lyssavirus.

They did me a favour the other day. I wanted to find a place to park my truck in the shade for the sake of my dog. Not so amazingly I found 4 empty bays, all under one of the giant trees where the flying foxes live during the day. People did not want bat poo all over their shiny little cars. My truck has endured worse insults than that so I parked in the shade and was away for an hour.

When I got back I could not believe it. There were droppings everywhere but not one had hit the truck. Talk about serendipity. I got into the truck and then as I opened the driver window I got spattered! It must have come down vertically to hit my sleeve while I was inside the truck.

The picture shows that it is dark and smooth and gooey. I assume it is baby flying fox poo. It looks like human baby poo, only it is darker. No surprise there since they are mammals and feed on milk.

My hope is that one day lady finger bananas will be permitted to grow wild again to nourish flying foxes and people alike. And that flying foxes can come and go without being attacked by ignorant people.

Amazingly, flying foxes have a nursery in the centre of the city of Cairns - look in the centre of the photo for the big square roof with giant trees along two sides.

LINDSAY SELBY: Bat creature blog

On browsing around the internet I came across some reports of strange creatures being seen sitting on the roofs of houses.

'Phantom Roof Creature

BY MAGI B. By Stephen Wagner:

This happened about 2007 in the summer. I am 54 years old and live in a very small town in southeastern Washington. I worked for our local small town hospital cleaning the doctors' offices and local clinic after hours, usually around midnight to 5 a.m.

This was about 2 or 3 in the morning and the night was clear and warm. I was standing outside in front of one of the offices having a smoke. I was turned toward the parking lot with the building about 30 feet away and to my right. I was looking up at the sky when suddenly movement to my right caught my eye. I quickly turned my head and caught sight of something dark -- very dark, like a shadow -- on the roof. It moved quickly behind the dormer. It moved so fast that all I saw was the back end of it. Its head had already gone behind the high dormer that was on the roof over the entryway. It was about the size of a man, but it seemed to move like a hyena, with rounded haunches, and if it had a tail, it was tucked between its legs. I wasn't scared, really, but I went inside nonetheless. A few weeks later, I was sitting in my truck at the same set of offices taking a break. Across the parking lot straight ahead of me I saw movement. This thing ran like a shadow under the light, moving from one building to the next, moving against the walls of the buildings. I don't know what I saw those two times, but I will tell you this: I saw something and I don't believe it was human. It was some sort of animal, but I got the impression it was intelligent. The older I get, the more I have come to realize just how much we don't know about the world we live in. source:

http://paranormal.about.com/od/othercreatures/a/tales_09_11_08t.htm

Strange Flying Creature

by Mr. Izu

This actually happened to my older brother and my grandma in Puerto Rico when he was about 9 (he's 33 now). My grandparents' house had a lot of land, and it inclines down, so if you look at the house from street level you see only the top part of the driveway and the roof of the house. Also, the house is near some huge mountains which surround Utuado, so in the back are the mountains. One day, my brother was playing on the driveway (from there you could see on top of the roof) and he looked up because he heard a loud thump, when he looked up my grandma came out at the same time. They looked on top of the roof and saw a short, hairy, dark brown apelike thing, with wings. It shook off and flew away into the mountains.' Source:http://paranormal.about.com/library/blstory_march05_15.htm

These were both spotted in the Americas but these stories abound all over the world; from the mothman to the owlman. It is possible that a large form of a bat could be responsible but as most of the bats in the UK tend to be of the small variety, not a likely candidate for this country. The first account does not mention wings but the creature must have either had wings or been good at climbing to get onto the roof. It is intriguing that there are so many of these stories that have some similarities. Everyone perceives things differently so the same creature can look different to different people i.e. some will say ape-like, another will say humanoid. If the stories were exactly the same then it would be suspicious. The fact they are not suggests that these sightings are reported without knowledge of other sightings of a similar nature in other areas of the world. Could there be an unknown bat-like creature out there? I hope so …I would love to catch a glimpse of one!

YOUNG PEOPLE NEED TO BE TAUGHT WHY MUSEUMS ARE IMPORTANT

So another new species has been discovered in the dusty store-rooms of a natural history museum.

Scientists from the Smithsonian Inbstitute were going through the archives at the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences and found a hitherto unknown fruit batwhich after sitting on a shelf for more than 150 years, has it finally been "discovered" as a new species.

And it is probably extinct.

Academy records show the bat was collected in 1856 by Henry Clay Caldwell of the Navy on the Samoan island of Upolu. It came into the possession of William S. W. Ruschenberger, a surgeon who at various times was president of the College of Physicians and of the academy. He donated it in 1857. The creature had a wingspan of at least two feet, and it weighed a half-pound when alive. In the paper, published in the journal American Museum Novitates, Helgen identified a second, even larger bat species in the collection of the Smithsonian.

There have been several such species found in museums over the last year, and a few months ago Richard Freeman gave a round up of others from the past few years. These discoveries, if nothing else, highlight why natural history museums are of such importance. But it seems that they may be on the way out.

A few weeks ago we were told:

My friend went to a Care of Collections meeting the other day in London where a lot of very important museum people were and rather worryingly the trend for museums getting rid of collections seems to be becoming more popular. (She said it seemed more like a 'don't care of collections meeting) In museums the natural history collections are always the first to go as many curators don't see the importance of them. Perhaps the CFZ could do something about how the nation's museums should be safeguarding these collections not considering binning them.

Although this also presents an opportunity if you are thinking of aquiring any specimens. Apparently Bristol is thinking of greatly downsizing its natural history collection. You could write to them with an offer to take some...

If the CFZ Museum had the storage resources I would certainly do that. But the most important thing that has to be asked is "Why, for God's sake?" The natural world is infinitely fascinating, and every child that we have met recently has been at least slightly interested in what we do. Many of them have been as obsessed as I was at that age.

Why do the powers that be insist on trying to stifle that interest at an early age? Because that's what it looks like. The Zoo Licensing people appear to do their best to close zoos down rather than to help them adapt to the changing needs of the 21st Century. But even here there are anomalies. Without mentioning any names, I know of two really good small zoos that have been closed down by these increasingly stringent committees, but another one, which really is a piece of crap, which has been allowed to stay open. A fourth zoo, whose only raison d'etre appears to be to preach Creationism to schoolchildren is flourishing. It is almost as if the Zoo Licensing people have their own agenda - and that it is an agenda which has nothing to do with either animal welfare or conservation. Like so much of present government legislation both in the UK and abroad it makes no sense at all, UNLESS one envisions some completely covert agenda.

And now the same thing is happening to museums. There are good ones (like RAMM in Exeter), but the overall trend is worrying. I really do not know what to do, but I do know that we need to do something.

Suggestions please....

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/20090711_A_new_species_found_in_a_jar.html

The AMNH paper can be downloaded here:
http://digitallibrary.amnh.org/dspace/handle/2246/5965?mode=full

SHOCKING NEWS...

On this of all days the words Caveat Lector should come into play, especially when there is at least one mistake in the opening paragraph of the story:

The inch-long Christmas Island pipistrelle, which weighs about a tenth of an ounce, could become the first Australian mammal to become extinct since the Tasmanian tiger in 1930.

The last captive thylacine died in Hobart Zoo in 1936, and I am certain that I have heard of other Antipodean mammals going extinct in the intervening years (memo to self: Ask Dr Naish) but, a brief trawl around the Internet does support the story which can be found here:

http://ecoworldly.com/2009/03/30/with-only-20-left-australian-bat-could-be-extinct-within-weeks/

MUIRHEAD`S MYSTERIES:A GIANT RAT, AN ENTOMBED BAT AND AN IMPRISONED TOAD - 1812

My blog today covers the well known Fortean phenomenon of entombed animals,but this time with a difference: Entombed toads will be familiar to the dedicated Fortean, but entombed bats may be less familiar.

There was a case of an imprisoned bat or bat-like creature in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire,U.K. in the 1920s or `30s, but in a fit of paranoia about the occult (because it seemed so weird) about 15 years ago I threw the evidence, in the form of copies of the newspaper cuttings, away. So part of this blog(see below) is an attempt to make up for that error.

Enjoy!

"A rat,of astonishing size,was lately killed at a public house in E.Clarendon,near Guildford (1) it measured from the tip of the nose to the end of the tail,2 feet 3 inches,and was of proportionate bulk." Macclesfield Courier and Stockport Express or Cheshire General Advertiser.(MC & S.E or C.G.A.)March 21st 1812.p.3

"We are informed by a correspondent,that a bat was lately discovered at Astbury (2) in a solid block of stone quaried seven feet from the surface. The bat is described as having ears 7/8 (? figures unclear) of an inch in diameter and curvated like a ram`s horn;it was much larger than the common bat, and on exposure to the air seemed to languish. We shall be obliged to any naturalist amongst our numerous readers, who can inform us what species of bat can live in stone, or what kind of stone is sufficiently porous to permit animal respiration." MC & S.E. or C.G.A. March 21st 1812.p.3

"A live toad was found eight feet below the surface in a solid whitestone rock,in a quarry near Lochrutton (3)" MC & S.E. or C.G.A. June 6th 1812. p.3

(1) Surrey (2) Cheshire (3) Dumfries

More news on those New Zealand bats

Bats attack unlikely
03/02/2009 5:16:01

A man who specialises in investigating unusual claims involving animals believes two men in Rotorua were more likely to have been attacked by birds than bats. The men were walking home along Amohia Street in Rotorua early yesterday morning when they say they were bitten by a flock of bats. They jumped into a taxi and the driver later went back to the street and says she saw about a hundred bats roosting in trees.

Cryptozoologist Tony Lucas says it is a bizarre situation. He says the two species of bats in New Zealand are the size of a mouse and are generally very shy. He does not believe the mammals would have the strength in their jaws to cause any damage to humans.

Mr Lucas says the chances of spotting the bats, let alone being attacked by them is incredible. He says they usually favour forested areas, not suburban streets.

Share this Article:http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/newsdetail1.asp?storyID=151929

There is also video footage of the story:

http://www.3news.co.nz/Video/Weather/tabid/316/articleID/89439/cat/64/Default.aspx#video

GUEST BLOGGER TONY LUCAS: NZ Bat attack has sinister implications..

Tony Lucas is one of our New Zealand representatives. We first published his work in the 2008 Yearbook when he wrote us an overview of New Zealand cryptozoology. New Zealand is a particularly fascinating place because of its zoological isolation from the rest of the world. This lunchtime we posted a story that Tony aent us about bats, but now it is spreading, and - as Tony says - this is all beginning to look rather sinister. I, for one, am beginning to agree with him, and I have a sneaking suspicion that this story is going to run and run, and that it will have some ramifications that we never considered when we first decided to print it....

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominionpost/4835601a23881.html
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/41691/rotorua039s-039batman039-jokes-about-close-encounter

In all honesty I am somewhat concerned by this as there are some strange things happening here. Normally the gardens in this area are swarming with aphids this time of year, they are a yearly bane of the roses, this year there isnt one. Besides them there are no Praying mantis and usually they are comming into the house on a regular basis at night.

The waxeyes - smallish birds that regularly come through in the mornings are just not here this summer. This is not just happening locally Ive checked in other areas of the country with the same results. There seems to be some kind of breakdown in the foodweb.

Bees are also very scarce.If these are Bats and they have come into a town area they could be looking for food as they are insectivorous. There has never been a year like this, lack of insects, extreme temperatures like we have never had; here in Hastings yesterday we had 38.4 C, totally unheard of, we get up to 33 maybe on a couple of days in summer but this heat seems to be on going with no sign of rain whatsoever.

All very unusual

regards
Tony Lucas
NZ Cryptozoologist.

GUEST BLOGGER TONY LUCAS: Bats put in the bite

Tony Lucas is one of our New Zealand representatives. We first published his work in the 2008 Yearbook when he wrote us an overview of New Zealand cryptozoology. New Zealand is a particularly fascinating place because of its zoological isolation from the rest of the world. Tony has a peculiar story to tell about bats...

The following news report appeared this morning reported by Newstalk ZB a national Radio station:

Bats attack in Rotorua
6:50AM Monday February 02, 2009
Source: Newstalk ZB
Read

There are reports of bats attacking two men in Rotorua. Taxi driver Ngaia Monaham says two men jumped in her car near Amohia Street just after 3.00am Monday. She says they told a bizarre story of being attacked and bitten by bats. Monaham says she did not believe them at first but than noticed they had bite marks on their arms. She says she and another taxi driver went back to Amohia Street with a torch and found hundreds of bats flying around in the trees.
sourced from Newstalk ZB

I rang Newstalk ZB and was told that the matter had been referred to the Department of Conservation who were investigating the report. When I spoke to a representative of the Rotorua Department of Conservation he said that if the animals involved were bats, at this stage it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

The Bats are nocturnal and would not be echo locating and therefore hard to find with detectors.

They would have to wait until dusk to check the area with bat detectors and see if any results came up with anything. If there are bats in the area it would be highly unusual as it is not pristine bat habitat as they like forested areas which the location provided certainly does not provide.

They were however obliged to check it out.

New Zealand bats are realatively small and totally insectivorous, there are only two species of bat native to New Zealand, the third species that was here is now long extinct. The Short Tailed Bat - Mystacina tuberculata and Long Tailed Bat – Chalinolobus tuberculatus. Both are highly endangered and conservation efforts are currently in progress to try and save both species from extinction.

The bats weigh about 8-11 g and if these were bats I find it hard to conceive that they would do the damage to a human they are supposed to have done.

The DOC worker I spoke to seemed to be of the opinion that the whole incident was one of misidentification and was skeptical that bats were actually involved.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Wouldn't it be fantastic if it were the supposedly extinct species of bat....