Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week! I have been enjoying the Olympics again this week. It has been fun to watch the ice skating, ice dancing, and skiing. Just like bats, I think there are some sports that aren’t getting nearly enough attention. For example, curling…what exactly is it? Since the Olympics are almost over, I’m starting to look forward to the 2020 Summer Olympics. They will be held in Tokyo, Japan. Japan has many different species of bats. They have both insectivore bats and fruit bats. The frosted myotis bat is a vesper bat that only lives in Japan. From its description, I think it must be an adorable little bat, but unfortunately, I was unable to find a picture of the little guy. Its back fur is brown with frosted tips and its stomach is a little lighter. It has velvety soft fur. The frosted myotis is very similar to the Yanbaru whiskered bat and the Burmese whiskered bat. It wasn’t discovered until 1969. This little bat likes to roost in tree hollows and is found in the mountain forests of lower elevations. Since it only lives on the islands of Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu, this bat isn’t very common. It is listed as endangered. If you would like to read more about this little bat, you can find some information here. Another bat found in Japan is the Bonin flying fox. Other names for this bat are the Bonin fruit bat and the Ogasawara giant bat. This beautiful bat lives in the subtropical forests of the islands of Chichijima, Hahajima, North Iwo Jima, and South Iwo Jima. Its fur is mostly black and brown and it has some silver-tipped hairs mixed in. The hair around its head, neck, and shoulders is frizzy. They […]
Today’s blog is dedicated to the people of Parkland, FL. I hope the injured recover quickly and the people who lost loved ones find peace. Please know that my thoughts are with you. Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week! I have been enjoying the Olympics. I’ve watched it every day since the Games started last week. So far, Norway has won the most medals with a total of 19. In honor of the Norwegians performing so well, I thought I would research a bat that lives there. I found a very adorable bat called the Nathusius pipistrelle. The Nathusius pipistrelle bat is very similar to the common Pipistrelle, but it has a different echolocation call. Both calls can be picked up by bat detectors, so you can easily tell them apart. The Nathusius pipistrelle has pretty reddish-brown fur on its back and stomach, and darker brown fur on its face and tail. This bat lives throughout Western Europe from the Ural Mountains to Turkey and, of course, Norway. He likes to migrate from the Northern and Eastern areas or Europe to the Southern and Western areas of Europe in the winter time. Just like the bats I’m used to seeing here in Virginia, the Nathusius pipistrelle likes to eat insects. They roost in hollow trees and old houses with small crevasses for them to hide in. One interesting fact about this bat is that it was chosen to be the first “Bat Species of the Year” by Batlife Europe in 2015. This distinction helped the Nathusius pipistrelle gain attention throughout 30 countries in Europe who promoted conservation issues and public awareness of this adorable little bat. If you want to read more about this bat, you can find information here and here.
Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week! I am excited that I can watch the Olympics again! It’s always fun to see all the athletes doing amazing things. I also like seeing everyone getting along so nicely. It’s nice to see that athletes from countries that don’t always like each other are able to put their differences aside and participate in the Olympic Games peacefully. I am especially excited to see North Korea and South Korea participating together as one great team. In honor of the fact that the Olympics are being held in Pyeongchang, South Korea I decided to write about a Korean bat. There are several different species of bats that live in Korea, but sadly, it’s very hard to find information on them. I did find some information on an adorable little bat called the Northern bat. This little bat has short round ears that kind of remind me of a mouse. They have blackish-brown fur, with dark brown or goldish fur on the tip of its head and back. This cute little critter lives all throughout Eurasia, from Scandinavia to Northern Italy, and Eastern England to Northern Japan. It is mainly found in the northern part of the continent. Many people think that these bats live in one place year-round, but they really are just slow migrators and like moving over a period of years. These little bats eat insects and especially love eating Ghost moths. One interesting fact that I learned was that in high altitude areas of Eurasia, the female Northern bats actually fly during the daytime! They do this because of the short nights, but the best hunting is after dusk and before dawn. If you would like to read more about these cute little bats, you can find information […]
Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week! It was an eventful one. The week began with sad news out of Afghanistan. This week’s blog is dedicated to the people of Afghanistan. I hope the injured recover quickly and the people who lost loved ones find peace. My thoughts are with you. We finished off the week with a little groundhog telling us that we were going to have six more weeks of winter. First, I would like to express my sympathies to all the little groundhogs who were woken up from their comfy slumber to predict the weather. Second, I would like to request that Mother Nature listen to the little critter and give us some snow. We really haven’t had a good snow this year and I would like to build a snowman. And now for the bat news! I found a very interesting article about how some bats migrated into South America and Mesoamerica. Usually plants and animals migrate from the continents to islands, and apparently moving from islands to continents is practically unheard of. This is because there are fewer competitors for food and fewer predators on islands. Scientists studying fossil records of Short-faced bats of South America discovered that these bats most likely originally came from the Caribbean islands! From there, they colonized Mesoamerica and South America, where the species now happily lives. Since this is very unusual, scientists wanted to know why. They came up with two explanations. First, the Short-faced bat has a powerful bite. This might have helped them eat foods that other bats couldn’t. This allowed them to have a wider variety of foods that they could eat. Secondly, these bats had amazing wings! Their wings were semi-transparent, which enabled them to see their predators while they hid in […]