#lesser noctule

[science-lover2941]

Look at this adorable Lesser noctule!!!

Nyctalus leisleri is a species of insectivorous bat belonging to the vesper bat family, Verspertilionidae.

[picture taken by me :) ]

[hellsitegenetics]

String identified: CA, A A A A , GA: T GT A T T AT … A . T C

Closest match: Nyctalus leisleri genome assembly, chromosome: 8 Common name: Lesser Noctule

(image source)

FOR DECADES, MANKIND HAS SHARED ONE UNIVERSAL DESIRE, ONE UNIFIED GOAL: TO SIMPLY GET A BITE TO EAT

[capture-the-world-2770]

Lesser noctule

(picture taken by me)

[bestanimal]

Round 3 - Mammalia - Chiroptera

(Sources - 1, 2, 3, 4)

Our next order of mammals is Chiroptera, commonly called “bats.” Chiroptera is the second largest order of mammals after Rodentia. Bats comprise about 20% of all classified mammal species worldwide, with over 1,400 species. They are divided into the families Pteropodidae (“megabats”), Rhinopomatidae (“mouse-tailed bats”), Craseonycteridae (“Kitti's Hog-nosed Bat”), Megadermatidae (“false vampire bats”), Rhinonycteridae (“trident bats”), Hipposideridae (“Old World leaf-nosed bats”), Rhinolophidae (“horseshoe bats”), Nycteridae (“slit-faced bats”), Emballonuridae (“sac-winged bats” and “sheath-tailed bats”), Myzopodidae (“sucker-footed bats”), Mystacinidae (“New Zealand short-tailed bats”), Thyropteridae (“disk-winged bats”), Furipteridae (“Smoky Bat” and “Thumbless Bat”), Noctilionidae (“bulldog bats”), Mormoopidae (“ghost-faced bats”, “mustached bats”, and “naked-backed bats”), Phyllostomidae (“New World leaf-nosed bats”), Natalidae (“funnel-eared bats”), Molossidae (“free-tailed bats”), Miniopteridae (“long-fingered” and “bent-winged bats”), Cistugidae (“wing-gland bats”), and Vespertilionidae (“vesper bats”).

Bats are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight, with their forelimbs adapted as wings. Their wings are a patagium of skin stretched between 4 fingers, with their thumbs pointing forward and supporting the leading edge of the wing. The wings of bats are much thinner and consist of more bones than the wings of birds, allowing bats to maneuver more accurately and fly with more lift and less drag. The surface of the wings is equipped with touch-sensitive receptors on small bumps called Merkel cells, also found on human fingertips. In bats, each of these bumps has a tiny hair in the center, making it even more sensitive and allowing the bat to detect and adapt to changing airflow. While bats are highly agile in the air, they can only crawl or drag themselves awkwardly across the ground, and most of their time not in the air is spent roosting upside down. However, a few species, such as the New Zealand Lesser Short-tailed Bat (Mystacina tuberculata) and the Common Vampire Bat (Desmodus rotundus) are able to walk or even run on all fours. Most bats are insectivores, and most of the rest are frugivores (fruit-eaters) or nectarivores (nectar-eaters). A few feed on vertebrates, such as the specialized blood-drinking vampire bats (subfamily Desmodontinae), the bird-hunting Greater Noctule Bat (Nyctalus lasiopterus), the fish-catching Greater Bulldog Bat (Noctilio leporinus), the frog-eating Fringe-lipped Bat (Trachops cirrhosus), and the Spectral Bat (Vampyrum spectrum) and Ghost Bat (Macroderma gigas) which sometimes feed on other bats. Carnivorous bats make use of echolocation for navigation and finding prey, while herbivorous bats use their more well-developed eyesight. Apart from the Arctic, the Antarctic and a few isolated oceanic islands, bats exist in almost every habitat on Earth.

Some bats lead solitary lives, while others live in colonies of millions. In some, the females live in groups while the males are solitary, or males and females will live in separate groups. Most species are polygynous, where males mate with multiple females. Some species are promiscuous, where both sexes mate with multiple partners. A few species form monogamous pairs. Female bats use a variety of strategies to control the timing of pregnancy and the birth of young, to make delivery coincide with maximum food ability and other ecological conditions. In most bat species, females carry and give birth to a single pup per litter. The young emerges rear-first, possibly to prevent the wings from getting tangled, and the female cradles it in her wing and tail membranes. In social species, females give birth and raise their young in maternity colonies and may assist each other in birthing. A few species also assist in suckling other mothers’ young. Most of the care for a bat pup comes from the mother, but in monogamous species, the father will also play a role in childcare.

The fragile skeletons of bats do not fossilize well, but Chiroptera is assumed to have arisen in the Eocene. The oldest known bat fossils include Archaeonycteris praecursor and Altaynycteris aurora (55–56 million years ago), both known only from isolated teeth. The oldest complete bat skeleton is Icaronycteris gunnelli (52 million years ago).

Propaganda under the cut:

The eyes of most carnivorous bat species are small and poorly developed, leading to poor visual acuity, but no species is truly blind. Microbats may use their vision for orientation and while travelling between their roosting grounds and feeding grounds, as echolocation is effective only over short distances. Some species can even detect ultraviolet (UV) light.

The smallest mammal in the world is the Kitti's Hog-nosed Bat (Craseonycteris thonglongyai), also known as the Bumblebee Bat (though the the Etruscan Shrew [Suncus etruscus] is smaller by body mass). An adult Kitti's Hog-nosed Bat is about 29 to 33 mm (1.1 to 1.3 in) in length and weighs around 2 g (0.071 oz).

On the other wing, the largest bat in the world is the Giant Golden-crowned Flying Fox (Acerodon jubatus) which can reach a weight of 1.6 kg (3.5 lb) and has a wingspan of 1.7 m (5 ft 7 in).

Bat dung is mined as guano from caves and used as a highly effective fertilizer due to the high content of nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium, all key nutrients essential for plant growth. Bat guano also contains fine particles of insect exoskeleton, which are largely composed of chitin. Chitin from insect exoskeletons is an essential compound needed by beneficial soil fungi, as chitin is a major component of fungal cell wall membranes. This fungi then improves soil fertility. However, unsustainable harvesting of bat guano may cause bats to abandon their roost. Many cave ecosystems are wholly dependent on bats to provide nutrients via their guano which supports bacteria, fungi, invertebrates, and vertebrates in the cave. The loss of bats from a cave can result in the extinction of species that rely on their guano.

The extinct bats Palaeochiropteryx tupaiodon and Hassianycteris kumari, both of which lived 48 million years ago, are the first fossil mammals whose colorations have been discovered. Both were reddish-brown.

The fastest flying bat, the Mexican Free-tailed Bat (Tadarida brasiliensis), can achieve a ground speed of 160 km/h (100 mph)!

Mexican Free-tailed Bats are one of the few species to "sing" like birds. Males sing to attract females.

Greater Bulldog Bats (Noctilio leporinus) “honk” to warn each other when they may be about to collide.

Carnivorous bats make use of magnetoreception, in that they have a high sensitivity to the Earth's magnetic field, like birds. These bats use a polarity-based compass, meaning that they differentiate North from South, unlike birds, which use the strength of the magnetic field to differentiate latitudes.

Scientists reported in January 2025 that they had discovered how some bats travel hundreds of miles in the spring to give birth in warmer temperatures: they surf storm fronts.

The Spotted Bat (Euderma maculatum) can travel as much as 38.5 km (24 mi) in one night in search of food.

Many species of plants depend on bats for seed dispersal. The Jamaican Fruit Bat (Artibeus jamaicensis) has been recorded carrying fruits weighing 3–14 g or even as much as 50 g.

Nectar-eating bats have acquired specialised adaptations. These bats possess long muzzles and long, extensible tongues covered in fine bristles that aid them in feeding on particular flowers and plants. These long, narrow tongues can reach deep into the long cup shape of some flowers. When the tongue retracts, it coils up inside the rib cage. The Tube-lipped Nectar Bat (Anoura fistulata) has the longest tongue of any mammal relative to its body size.

Around 500 species of flowering plant rely on bat pollination. Because of this, some of these flowers have adapted to only open their flowers at night.

Due to the specialized metabolism of Vampire Bats (subfamily Desmodontinae) they are highly susceptible to starvation if they fail to feed within 70 hours. To combat this, vampire bats engage in reciprocal altruism, and will feed each other by regurgitating blood. If a bat cannot find food two nights in a row, due to injury, illness, or simple unluckiness, one of its colony mates may feed it. Vampire bats who are more “popular” in the colony may be fed more often.

White-nose syndrome (WNS) is a fungal disease in North American bats which has resulted in the dramatic decrease of the bat population in the United States and Canada, killing millions and causing a 90% decline in some areas. The condition is named for a distinctive fungal growth of Pseudogymnoascus destructans around the muzzles and on the wings of hibernating bats. It is likely the fungus was brought to North America from Europe by cavers who didn’t wash their equipment. Bats in Europe seem to be resistant to the fungus. The Forest Service estimated in 2008 that the die-off from white-nose syndrome means that at least 2.4 million pounds (1.1 million kg or 1,100 tons) of insects will go uneaten, possibly leading to crop damage or having other economic impact.

It has been estimated that bats save the agricultural industry of the United States anywhere from $3.7 billion to $53 billion per year in pesticides and damage to crops. This also prevents the overuse of pesticides, which can pollute the surrounding environment, and may lead to resistance in future generations of insects.

Homosexual relations have been observed in the Bonin Flying Fox (Pteropus pselaphon) and the Indian Flying Fox (Pteropus medius).

The Christmas Island Pipistrelle (Pipistrellus murrayi) was declared extinct in 2009. This extinction was likely caused by introduced, invasive species such as Domestic Cats (Felis catus), Black Rats (Rattus rattus), Common Wolf Snakes (Lycodon capucinus), and Yellow Crazy Ants (Anoplolepis gracilipes). The bats could have also been poisoned by the insecticide Fipronil, used to control Yellow Crazy Ant Colonies.

In China, bats have been associated with happiness, joy, and good fortune. Five bats are used to symbolise the "Five Blessings": longevity, wealth, health, love of virtue, and peaceful death.

A new threat to bats has arisen in the form of bat taxidermy. Bat taxidermy, where bats are either mounted in glass, encased in resin, articulated as a skeleton, or simply stuffed, is growing in popularity as “quirky” decor. However, many sellers will claim to be ethical when they are not, and are actually catching and killing bats to meet the rising demand of this new market. In some cases, entire caves will be gassed so that the bat carcasses can be harvested by the thousands. Many of the bat species used for oddity decor are declining or even endangered. The transport of bat carcasses overseas has also been linked to the spread of disease.

[outofangband]

Mammals of Maglor’s Gap and Lothlann

Now that I’ve finished world building posts on birds for each Fëanorian realm pre Amon Ereb, I’m going through mammals next! Mammals of the March of Maedhros can be found here and my environmental world building Masterlist is here!

Maglor’s Gap was the widest break in the mountains and cliffs dividing Beleriand and the lands to the north. It lay between the blue mountains to the east and the March of Maedhros to the west. Lothlann was a wide expanse of plains to the north of the Gap. The rivers greater and little Gelion ran around the western and eastern borders.

Forest steppes: wild goat, wood bison, southern white breasted hedgehog, gray marmot, ground squirrel, dormouse, woolly hares, long eared hedgehog, gray shrews, northern hog badger, sable (rare), steppe mouse, lesser noctule (bat), wildcat, red fox, red deer

Bordering mountain fences: Caucasian Tur, mouflon, chamois, alpine pika, pond bat, marbled polecat, saiga antelope, steppe polecat, mountain weasel, ibex (rare), argali

Plains: goitered gazelle, steppe wolf, wild horse, northern water vole (by the rivers), snow vole, grey dwarf hamster, common hare, common rabbit, striped field mouse, ural field mouse, harvest mouse, mountain hare, field vole (also primarily by rivers), wild horse

World building notes:

The horse based cavalry of Maglor is one of the few details we have about this region. I headcanon that the horses in question are a mixture of the descendants of the Valinor born horses brought by the Fëanorian host as well as wild horses from Estolad, Himlad, Lothlann and the other plains regions of Eastern Beleriand.

Sheep and goats provide the majority of milk and cheese products in the Gap. Some of these species are imported from other regions like sheep from Thargelion.

Domesticated bovine are rare in Eastern Beleriand outside Thargelion and parts of Estolad. There are however wild and semi domesticated bison such as the wood bison, especially on the borders of forested and forest steppe regions. Fur, skin and bones from bison are used by both Noldorin and Avarin elves for clothing and other materials.

Wild hamsters, rabbits, hares and voles were used by a select few of Maglor’s cavalry as companions and even spies.

A regiment of foot based scouts had the sigil of a hare in the form of a light silhouette upon a black background.

[bonefall]

sorry if you've talked about this before, but I'm curious if clanmew have different words for different bat species? they obviously differentiate insects and birds, but bat's are harder to distinguish at a glance. cats would have an advantage with their hearing, being able to hear bat's squeaks (and I think different species make different patterns and sounds?) but like. I don't remember how many bat species there are here (I think noctule, pipistrelle, greater horseshoe, lesser horseshoe, daubenton's, whiskered, barbastelle, and serotine? I mightve missed a couple), but I love bat's so thought I'd ask. pipistrelle are the most common though I'm from the south-east of England so I occasionally see daubenton's too.

FOUR bat species! Over here in the main entry for birds, check there if you'd like more trivia on them. Clan cats count them as very special, blessed songbirds.

The ones that Clan cats have words for so far;

Pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pipistrellus) = Popep

Soprano Pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pygmaeus) = Ipi'ip

Long-eared Brown Bat (Plecotus auritus) = Fepfr

Common Noctule (Nyctalus noctula) = Shi'po

There are four more kinds of bat, for EIGHT total in this region, that I have not yet described because I don't have good access to their song recordings (Even the main four were ass on butts to hunt down) If you have clear recordings of the songs of these four I'll add them too.

Pipistrellus nathusii

Nyctalus leisleri

Myotis daubentonii

Myotis nattereri

[usmaradiomagazine]

ON AIR - Thursday 20 March 2025 at 7:00pm (CET) - usmaradio.org 𝐒𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐄𝐐𝐔𝐈𝐍𝐎𝐗 𝐈 𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐄𝐀𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐇

A sonic almanac from the New School of the Anthropocene

NSOTA is a radical experiment in alternative education, away from marketisation and arcane specialism towards co-sensing systems change through creative practice This is an ecological transmission of DIY ethics, non-hierarchical structures, radical networks, interconnected sensing through sound, text, voice, spoken word, human and more-than-human collaborative practice, patchwork group thinking, and radio art.

This episode is created for the March equinox, a time where northern and southern hemispheres experience equal amounts of dark and light, night and day, before tipping towards or away from the sun. The piece is curated and produced by Stephen Shiell and composed using original and borrowed material from NSOTA scholars.

Scholar contributions:

Stephen Shiell radio dowsing composition, playing with EVP Hannah White ‘Equal Breath’, a text score for the equinox David Lea Harringay Nocturne: An Ultrasound Medley - performed by Common Noctule, Lesser Noctule, Serotine, Daubenton’s Bat, Common Pipistrelle and Soprano Pipistrelle. Recorded in Harringay, London Chris de Sel Spring Radio from Vauxhall City Farm with India on a train, a collection of recordings from 2014 and 2025 Stephen Shiell composition of bike and dome bells, ringing in the Spring Sk.ye cut up poem snatched from various texts Venetia Allen ‘We don’t even know’ an elegy for the world we are losing Rhona Eve Clews ‘Weirdos in the same ways/ his cobra move’ voice note from Fiona  Hannah White toning the ‘Equal Breath’ score Pascal Sleigh Earth to Earth, composed on Lossenham Farm. The kind work of the people there and the resources they so thoughtfully shared enabled this music-making to happen. This composition is generously played by: Hugh Webb - harp, Melanie Henry - flute, Nick Cooper - cello, Sam Bailey – piano Rhona Eve Clews climbing the stairs of Bidston Observatory Artistic Research Centre (BOARC), whilst in Liverpool, thinking about the comings and goings of winter and spring Rhona Eve Clews ‘Bells of Oda Park’ audio recording, Netherlands, recalling birdsong Naomi ZP Three moments of Kama Muta Simon McClelland Morris The Church of Matt Johnson, following on from the Neon Valley concept album No Boundary, a sonic response to the idea of the parish boundary, The Church of Matt Johnson speaks instead of freeing the confinement of a boundary (under the guise of a god). Instead offering us the idea of a church to anything and all that captivates our spirit and invigorates the heart. https://theneonvalley.bandcamp.com/album/post-poetry-blues Rhona Eve Clews ‘My first ever snog’ voice note from Sarah Rhona Eve Clews feet descending the stairs, BOARC Hannah White “Co-sensing with Radical Tenderness” a reading from Vanessa Machado de Oliveira’s ‘Hospicing Modernity’ Stephen Shiell Tocante drone, powered by light and moisture from my skin Rhona Eve Clews ‘Latvia melts’, water as it passes through melting icicles and gutters, Riga Michelle Watson Wonderest Manifesto, written by Moksha Poetess (Michelle Watson) performed by Moksha Poetess and Tommy Calderbank, music production by Massimo Fiocco Stephen Shiell field recording of Festival de Santa Maria, Giari di Gesturi, Sardinia Rhona Eve Clews me recording a natural spring on the borders of Wales Blanc Sceol recording of ‘Equal Breath’ with harmonicas and parakeets

[vampirefunkmetal]

while i dont think he CAN, if he COULD he'd be a lesser noctule aka leisler's bat 🦇

[loveisinthebat]

A Loaf of Friend

[spidermilkshake]

Started doing some to-scale size references for Redwall-verse species, including some speculative ones (and corrected identifications, such as Jacques's few infamous instances of "crested lizards"... those are newts, buddy).

All the creatures in this series are obviously much less tiny or gigantic in proportion to each other than their real-life inspirations. Kinda got to do that to make a building useful for both small mice and massive badgers and otters!

All of the smaller bat species that would be present in the Mossflower and surrounding regions, though the series itself doesn't pay much attention to bats and their great diversity and very different life cycles. For the most part, any bats seen in the series are the mouse-eared bat or the pipistrelle (two of the most common, generic "lives in big caves" small insectivorous species) All of the bats in the series itself that appear are regarded as belonging to the "goodbeast" class, a pleasant change from the usual end result of Being an Animal the Public Loves to Hate featuring in Redwall (like poor rats, weasels, and snakes...). The bats that do show do seem to embrace their elevated status somewhat, though appear a bit more oblivious to the deep, nasty depths that the roots of such division go to, and their wide-reaching and often violent consequences. I suppose if you lived in a cave and never met any outsiders but one time in a generation, you'd be oblivious too. Of course... Jacques made Biology-Class-Failing blunders the first few times he tried including bats, the worst of which was presenting the bats as blind. OOPS. That's an animal-myth so widely-criticized you'd have to find a very sheltered kid or a very dim-witted adult to see people still spreading that little nugget of unwisdom.

The next time part of my series here shows bat species on it, it will include the larger ones. Which I speculate would NOT get the more friendly "goodbeast" class regard, largely down to their greater size meaning their natural predation would not be focused entirely on invertebrates (especially as the largest European bats do hunt small vertebrates, as bats are obligate carnivores). Being willing to hunt small birds, frogs, and mammals would stamp 'em with that Scarlet V of "vermin". The only reason some hunting creatures appear to still get counted "goodbeast" is that they have followed a sort of arbitrary rule: Only hunting fellow animals which "goodbeasts" haven't assigned any sort of intelligent-creature status to, which would be basically all invertebrates and fish... which becomes deeply iffy if you realize that a number of social insects, mollusks, and fish in general are very much just as conscious and intelligent as various mammals and reptiles in real life, so presumably they're sentient in the Redwall universe but just aren't capable of verbal speech. Except the ones that are. OOPS. Yeeeeeaaaaah... having river eels as named, speaking characters on occasion really hammers home that "goodbeasts" consider fish fair game only by some rigid rules division--their horror at seeing birds and mammals killed for food doesn't really seem morally motivated at all: They just want to be able to punish creatures for hunting anything close to them because they don't believe anything should hunt "goodbeasts" at all... but don't you tell them to make it equivocal! Of course Goodbeast creatures still get to enjoy delicious flesh--so long as it's from a creature different enough that they don't see themselves in it, and thus don't give silent permission for any of the underclass's creatures to "hunt outside the lines" they laid down on everybody.

XD It turns out, trying to stretch one's own personal pescetarianism into a universe that does not abide the same human-dominating ideologies... uh, turns out awkwardly! Especially weird when it's moral pescetarian stuff, which is a bullhonkey reason to not want to eat a bird but be perfectly a-okay with eating a parrotfish, especially with more modern animal sentience discoveries. It's a bonkers hypocrisy.

Less bonkers though than having pure-carnivore vesper bats eating exclusively mushrooms and salads. XD

[akhylsthebat]

A Big Day for Bat Facts!

Today is a Big Day for Bat Facts! Why, you might ask? Today, I have officially reviewed 100 bats! I started this small project a year ago, and never did I think it would become something like this. I hope you all have enjoyed what I do so far, as there is more stuff in store! Below is a list of all bats that I have reviewed, in case you are curious! Here’s to 100 more <3 ~ Akhyls ~ Common Vampire Bat (TBT done) Pallid Bat (TBT done) Seminole Bat (TBT done) Hoary Bat (TBT done) The Painted Bat (TBT done) Desert Long-Eared Bat (TBT done) Spotted Bat (TBT Done) Little Brown Bat (TBT Done) Honduran White Bat (TBT Done, 5 parts) Ghost Bat (TBT Done) Northern Ghost Bat (TBT Done) Pied Bat (TBT Done) African Straw-Colored Fruit Bat Rodrigues Fruit Bat Lesser Short-Nosed Fruit Bat Egyptian Fruit Bat Grey-Headed Flying Fox Big Brown Bat Tri-Colored Bat Eastern Red Bat Eastern Small-Footed Bat Evening Bat Gray Bat Indiana Bat Mexican Free-Tailed Bat Virginia Big-Eared Bat Northern Long-Eared Bat Northern Yellow Bat Rafinesque’s Big-Eared Bat Silver-Haired Bat Southeastern Bat Greater False Vampire Bat Lesser False Vampire Bat Hardwicke’s Wooly Bat White Throated Round Eared Bat Pygmy Round-Eared Bat Niceforo’s Big Eared Bat Southern Yellow-Eared Bat Dark Fruit-Eating Bat Great Stripe-Faced Bat Great Roundlead Bat Dusky Leaf-Nosed Bat East Coast Free-Tailed Bat Chocolate Wattled Bat Arnhem Land Long-Eared Bat Bare-Rumped Sheathtail Bat Greater Long-Eared Bat Abo Bat Christie’s Big-Eared Bat Banana Bat Chapin’s Free-Tailed Bat Van Gelder’s Bat Parti-colored Bat Lesser Bamboo Bat Black-Bearded Tomb Bat Little Bent-Wing Bat Black Flying Fox Diadem Leaf-Nosed Bat Eastern False Pipistrelle Eastern Free-Tail Bat Gould’s Wattled Bat Inland Broad-Nosed Bat Hill’s Sheathtail Bat Large-Eared Horseshoe Bat Large Forest Bat Little Forest Bat Northern Blossom Bat Northern Broad-Nosed Bat Orange Leaf-nosed Bat Semon’s Leaf-nosed Bat Southern Forest Bat Eastern Broad-nosed Bat White-striped Freetail Bat Yellow-Bellied Sheathtail Bat Common Bent-wing Bat Common Sheathtail Bat Coastal Sheathtail Bat Brazilian Brown Bat Argentine Brown Bat Northern Bat (Common) Serotine Bat Japanese House Bat Azores Noctule Bat Greater Noctule Bat Common Noctule Fish-Eating Bat Large-footed Myotis Alcathoe Bat Whiskered Bat Bechstein’s Bat Lesser Mouse-Eared Bat California Myotis Long-Fingered Bat Cryptic Myotis Pond Bat Daubenton’s Bat Geoffroy’s Bat Hodgson’s Bat Hairy-Legged Myotis Keen’s Myotis 

[powlokisdiary]

On Friday the 19th January we had no update on the Loki'sDiary and Friends facebook page, this is because me and my friend Alison went on a bat handling and identification course with a licensed bat trainer/handler! (Now I’m hoping to become a voluntary bat roost visitor, so this course will help massively when going to be licensed). Just incase you didn’t know, there is a lot of legislation surrounding bats. They are heavily protected animals in the uk, so the first part of our course covered this. Also to be able to attend these courses you have to be fully vaccinated against rabies as bats can be (but are very rarely) carriers of a strain of rabies known as EBLV ,which stands for European Bat Lyssavirus, and there are 2 types of strain known simply as EBLV1 and EBLV2. Since screening of bats for the disease began in 1986, over 15,000 bats have been tested and only 15 have ever come back as being infected to date. The legislation surrounding bats is also a bit of a minefield, so I’m just going to briefly state the basics before continuing! In Britain all bat species and their roosts are legally protected by both domestic and international legislation. This means you are commiting a criminal offence if you: 1. Deliberately capture, injure or kill a bat 2. Intentionally or recklessly disturb a bat in it’s roost or deliberately disturb a group of bats. 3. Damage or destroy a bat roosting place, even if it’s unoccupied at the time. 4. Possess or advertise/sell/exchange a bat (dead or alive) or any part of a bat 5. Intentionally or recklessly obstruct access to a bat roost. Again this is a very brief wording of the legislation - please refer to the full piece of legislation (found via the .gov website). Also the bats conservation trust website provides a lot of information and help with legislation, licensing advice and general advice if you do find a bat and think it needs help. I have to state that we were able to do this course as a whole because we were under the guidance of a fully licensed trainer/rehabilitator/surveyor etc. Natural England is the provider of licenses so people can survey, research, possess bats (living and dead but that’s a whole new ball game!), and so they can undertake some educational or conservation related activities - Our tutor was a license holder in many things that allowed her to teach what she did, not just anyone can run courses of this nature (but shockingly people still try!). Overall there are approximately 1300 species of bat worldwide with new ones being discovered on a regular basis. They are from the order ‘Chiroptera’ which means 'hand wing’. They are then seperated into 18 different families that are divided from 2 sub orders - mega chiroptera (fruit bats) and micro chiroptera. Approximately 70% of all bats are insectivores, and all 18 species of bat we havd in Britain are insectivores. They also account for more than a quarter of mammal species in the uk and around 20% of mammals worldwide! Because all of our native bats are insectivores they use echolocation to navigate and hunt for insects in the dark, and our smallest resident species can eat up to 3,000 insects a night. Apart from getting rid of nasty bugs/pests we don’t want like mosquito’s many species are crucial pollinators and their presence is an indicator of a healthy environment. Their futute is directly linked to our quality of life and tothe quality of the environment. Some of the surprising things we rely on bats for because of their pollination (and it’s majority/only bats in some cases because the plants are adapted to bat pollination!), include dates, vanilla, bananas, guavas, Iroko timber, Balsa wood, Sisal, Tequila (you can’t have tequila without the agave plant, and a few species of bat are this deserts plant primary pollinator!), and chewing gum. Now that we have some of the bat basics out of the way, I will briefly highlight the purposes of being on the course and what we had to learn during it. I say briefly, I could write a hell if a lot about it because of how amazing it was! Infact I have had to scrap my draft 3 times because I felt it was too long! I have covered the parts we had to learn about legislation,rabies and who/why people handle them. We also studied: anatomy, lifestyle and physiology of bats. Species identification and we had a practical session focusing on this which included: basic control, sexing, ageing, breeding status and looking at identification features. We practiced identification on living and dead specimens. We learned how best to ID each of the 18 native species of bat we have here in the uk, about how rare they are, their breeding habits, habitats etc as all these factors help towards making an accurate species ID. For example we have Soprano Pipistrelle bats and Common Pipistrelle bats which at a glance look exactly the same. But closer inspection shows that a Soprano has a more pinky coloured skin on it’s face and forearm compared to the more dark/black skin of the Common. Soprano’s also gave a distinguishable notch/slit between their nostrils and are generally found roosting in older buildinds and near water, where the commons nose is smooth and actually habitates in more modern buildings surprisingly! We were handling live specimens that were in rehabilitation for various reasons ir that were deemed unfit for release, and we had to wear gloves at all times of contact. I will simply state our learning checkpoints that we had to demonstrate with the bats to give an idea as to what we were doing. Sexing a bat: Lift the tail and control the movements if the bats feet, find and recognise genitalia, find the nipples on a female bat, recognise the testes and epididymis and/or buccal glands on males, and determine the breeding status if both sexes. Ageing a bat: Recognise differences in fur, open a wing for close examination, recognise the difference between juvenile and adult knuckles, measure a forearm, assess the wing condition (ie - mite marks, healed tears, membrane quality) and recognise breeding condition. Identify a species: Measure various body parts - especially forearm and other bone lengths, find a describe Calcar (length and shape), find the Post Calcerial Lobe (PCL) or know if it is absent, find and describe ear shape and tragus shape, know how to look at wing venation - membrane - tail - fur etc. From that description it does sound very full on and it was incredibly immersing and informative to say the least. It’s definitely an experience that has helped me push forward with pursuing certain tasks, and the educational value and material is immeasurable. We were at the Leighton Moss nature reserve in their conference room doing our studies. The reserve is definitely worth a walk around if you are interested in potentially seeing some of our rarer resident species (or if you just want a walk amongst nature). Included are photos from the session - the bats are a Soprano Pipistrelle (which was my first handling specimen and boy was he vocal! Trust me to get given a noisy one lol. He settled well though and then spent the rest os the time chilling in my hand…. awwww), Norman the Noctule bat (noctules are our biggest resident bat) Natterer’s bat and a Brandt’s bat. There is also a dead lesser horseshoe bat too. Also included are our forearm measurement charts and our certificates - names and license numbers blacked out for security purposes though! www.facebook.com/TheLokiDiary

[kowalskissaki]

2) Borowiec leśny lub borowiaczek, nietoperz Leislera, lesser noctule, Leisler's bat, Irish Bat (Nyctalus leisleri) – gatunek ssaka z rzędu nietoperzy, z rodziny mroczkowatych. W Polsce jest objęty ścisłą ochroną gatunkową oraz wymagający ochrony czynnej, dodatkowo obowiązuje zakaz fotografowania, filmowania lub obserwacji, mogących powodować płoszenie lub niepokojenie. W polskiej literaturze zoologicznej gatunek Nyctalus leisleri był oznaczany nazwą „borowiaczek”. W wydanej w 2015 roku przez Muzeum i Instytut Zoologii Polskiej Akademii Nauk publikacji „Polskie nazewnictwo ssaków świata” aby uniknąć wrażenia że takson ten należy do innego rodzaju, gatunkowi nadano nazwę „borowiec leśny”, jako przynależnego do rodzaju borowiec (Nyctalus). W Polsce uważany za rzadki i narażony na wymarcie w skali kraju. Jednak lokalnie, zwłaszcza w starych kompleksach leśnych (Puszcza Białowieska, Puszcza Kozienicka) oraz na południowym wschodzie kraju jest jednym z najczęstszych gatunków nietoperzy.

[loveisinthebat]

A precious sky Nugget