Is Batwatching an Olympic sport yet?

A photograh of a northern bat
A lovely Northern bat, Eptesicus nilssoni. By Mnolf (Photo taken in Rum, Tirol, Austria), CC-BY-SA-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

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 here.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Copyright © 2021 Bat Conservation & Rescue of Virginia. All rights reserved.