My two best friends on the island are both bat people from the same university in Germany. Here are some stories about bat.
Fig Bay
I went out to look for fruiting fig tree one day with Larissa. She drove the boat out of lab cove. The boat bumped for about half an hour before we got to a place where the water was clear and green. The boat slowed down when we approach the bay. We have to be very careful about the trees under water. So the boat almost drifted into the bay, during which a group of keel-billed toucan flew from a tree across water to another tree, on after another, for an interval of about 1 minute and lasted for at least 10 minutes. I am always worried that their heads are too heavy that they may crash in flight sometime.
The little boat drifted slowly, so was a dark cloud that haunted us for the whole morning. When we got to the bay, it started to rain. Larissa showed me at least five different fig species. One of them was fruiting. We surveyed half of the bay then the rain got heavy. She didn’t have a Rite in the Rain, a kind of field book that you can write in the rain. So we headed back. Before leaving I took a picture. When we drove out of the rain, I looked back. The fog arose from the island like cooking smoke in a remote village. I couldn’t remember what’s the name of the bay so named it fig bay.
Ripe Fig
One day on my way back to the lab, I smelled some sweet fragrance in the air when I passed Wheeler 14. So I looked around and found many figs on the ground. It’s a kind of big fruit fig. I picked up one, open it and smelled it. And I immediately felt my stomach was empty. How happy I would be if I am a bat! I would hang somewhere nearby enjoy the sweet fragrance all day and I must cannot wait till the darkness to come.
Molossidae
At night of Dec 28, lunar calendar, a bat flew into the hallway. I opened the door but it wouldn’t fly out. So I caught it by my insect net. In the net the little guy closed its eyes tightly and was slightly shivering. Its long, thin point tail indicates that it’s a member of Molossidae, insect eating bat. The tiny face looked like a dog’s face. Its back was furry. He was frustrated so I didn’t want to hold him anymore. I shook my net but the little man hung tightly with his little hands and legs. Christian told me bats have to hang vertically and need some distance to glide before they can actually take off. So I gently put him on the wall. Five minutes later when Larissa came, he had gone.
Thyropteridae
In the new rolled leaf of a Heliconia near the beginning of Snyder Molino roosted three tiny sucker-footed bats. Three of them hid at the bottom of the leaf with heads up. They have four small suckers on their wings and legs. They are the cutest animals I’ve seen on the island. To see the details click the picture.
Bat night
Last night I went to catch bat with Larissa. She uses mist net. In a short time we got 15. She gently detangled them from the net, measured them and fed them a little sugar water. Some bats were pregnant that they got so angry in the net. While Larissa was trying to get them out, they struggled to get themselves deeper. One of them bit her. But they were what she need for her experiment. The men were ready to mate. The balls were red and swollen. Larissa would work for the whole night while I left early before she started her experiment. She said that was the first time she got so many pregnant females for two years. And I was happy to share a fruitful night with her.
