Tag Florida bonneted bat

Love the new place!

Hi everyone! Happy spring! I hope you all had a good week! I have some amazing news! There is a horticulturist in Florida who has created a bat house to help one of the world’s most endangered mammals. The house has been designed to help the Florida bonneted bat. This bat has sadly lost most of its habitat and only a few hundred are left. The new house is able to hold more bats that the ones most people have in their homes. Even though this house seems perfect for the Florida bonneted bat, there is a chance that it won’t attract bats to live there. While it’s sad to see an empty home, it will still help the bats. When they see a giant bat house, people passing by are drawn to it and become interested in what they can to do to help bats. The house was inspired by three houses used by a half-million bats at the University of Florida. It has two stories and a big roof for the bats to hide and rest in. Some bats such as the common Evening bat and the Brazilian Free-tailed bat like to roost in tightly packed spaces, so they might enjoy the lower level of the house that is a bit smaller than the top. The Bonneted bats are more solitary animals who will hopefully like the larger upper level of the house. If you would like to read more about this new house, you can read about it here.

Bonnie bonnets in Florida

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week. Mine was fun because I have a friend visiting, so I’ve been doing a lot of sightseeing. There was a hurricane in the southeastern United States this week. The state of Florida was hit very hard. This week’s blog is dedicated to everyone affected by Hurricane Michael, not only in Florida, but also in Alabama, Georgia, North and South Carolina, and Virginia. I did a little bit of research and discovered that Florida’s largest bat is the Florida bonneted bat. I wrote about this bat a couple of years ago, but I thought it was worth refreshing everyone’s memories on this adorable bat. This bat is listed as endangered by the USFWS and is believed to be the rarest bat in the world. The Florida bonneted bat is large with a long tail membrane. It can be 6.5 inches long with a wingspan of 20 inches. Its ears join at the base. The bats’ fur is black, brown, gray, or cinnamon brown. Not much is known about this bat because it is so rare. They only live in a few counties in south Florida and only a few nursery roosts have been found. Loss of habitat is the Florida bonneted bats’ greatest threat. Habitat loss for this species comes in the form of human destruction of its roosting sites as well as natural disasters such as hurricanes. If you would like to read more about the Florida bonneted bat, you can find information here. In other batty news, there will be a bat event at Huntley Meadows Park in Alexandria, VA tonight at 7:00 PM. I am going to try to make it. Mrs. Sturges will definitely be there with some of our bat friends. If you are in the […]