Bats, Bats, Bats!

[Antonsrkn]

Well its that time again where I'm hopped up on coffee and pulling an all nighter for midterms and finding ways to distract myself.

I noticed several bat photos in the lifer thread, and that got me thinking about starting a thread specifically for these winged mice. I also looked and saw a few (very cool) threads about bats but lets see if we can get some more photos all together here. I didn't use to care about bats at all but a few years ago I finally got a good look at some and now I'm fascinated. Lets see how many bat photos and species we can rack up here between us. The divergent development of all the different facial structures is just amazing to me, as is the fact that there are bats adapted to feed on virtually anything from fish, to birds, frogs, nectar, etc... And I can't think of another order of mammal besides Chiropterans (bats) that can have so many species coexisting in a small area.

Lets see some bats from around the globe!

Also if anyone wants to throw out some photography advice on taking photos of these guys, its more than welcome.

And yes I am definitely using this as an excuse to show off and share some of my bat photos, but I want to see all yours too! Also I am hoping this will function as a double check on several of my IDs which i'm not certain about so if someone sees a case of mistaken identity, please let me know! I'm especially unsure about all the Artibeus.

Tent-Roosting Bat (Artibeus watsoni)--Costa Rica




Jamaican Fruit-eating Bat (Artibeus jamaicensis)--Yucatan, Mexico






Jamaican Fruit-eating Bat (Artibeus jamaicensis)--Dominican Republic


Mexican Funnel Eared Bat (Natalus stramineus)--Yucatan, Mexico




Lesser Doglike Bat (Peropteryx macrotis)--Yucatan, Mexico




Greater sac-winged bat (Saccopteryx bilineata)--Panama


White-throated Round-eared Bat (Lophostoma silvicolum)--Panama




And saving my favorite for last!

Spix's Disk-winged Bats (Thyroptera tricolor)--Costa Rica



And I guess to end it with here is a photo of me with some sort of mastiff bat (Molossus sp.) that we accidentally mistnetted one night because we were a bit too slow taking the nets down. Unfortunately no close ups of the actual bat, it was too stressed from being netted and I didn't want to shoot a flash off at it for photos.


If anyone wants more info on any of the bats whether it be species info, my experience, whatever... feel free to ask. Or alternatively some additional info is provided for each of the photos on my flickr page...Heres a link to my mammal set http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected] ... 237688657/

Looking forward to seeing all the photos you guys have stashed away.

[Hans Breuer (twoton)]

Wah! Excellent batography! How do you get them to sit still??

[Antonsrkn]

Thanks!

How do you get them to sit still??

Can't say I have any tricks for it or anything, I'm just quiet and try to keep my distance and when I do get close its a slow steady process and if the bat seems agitated I stop and wait or back off. It helps that some of the photos (all the Artibeus) were taken with a 80-400mm lens so I didn't have to get too close.

The only bat that I had help with was the Round eared bat, it was mistnetted by some bat biologists and was reluctant to fly away after being processed, so they set it on the branch in the photo and I snapped a few photos while it was hanging there.

[Rags]

Interesting thread. I have a couple to add...


Tent-Making Bats at Pozo Azul, Costa Rica.



I think these are Pipistrelles. They left their roost in the gables of a place we were staying at in Corfu every evening as it got dark. Sometimes as many as twenty five. It was virtually impossible to get a decent shot as I waited leaning out over the balcony. The bats just shot out of the gap giving little chance of a photo opportunity.


Eventually I decided to get up before dawn and try to get them returning to the roost. It proved to be far easier for photos as the bats usually fluttered for a second or two before diving into the gap in the gable end.











Fruit Bats - not sure of the species - photographed at a large roost in the park at Siem Reap, Cambodia.








Finally, the ultimate 'Bat experience'. From Deer Cave, Mulu.



Home of Abraham Lincoln...


The dusk exodus of 3 million wrinkle-lipped bats.

[Curtis Hart]

Some nice photos posted so far. Rags, I think your fruit bats are Lyle's Flying-fox. According to the field guide I'm using, there are only Lyle's Flying-foxes at Siem Reap. Large Flying-fox get close, but yours don't look huge.


Here's a few I uploaded this morning, I'll post more later. Any ID help is welcome.

Chaerephon pumilus (I think), Kruger NP, South Africa


Epomophoros sp, Kruger NP, South Africa


Pteropus giganteus, Kandy, Sri Lanka


Rhinolophus beddomei, Indira Gandhi NP, Tamil Nadu, India


Rhinolophus sedulus, Danum Valley, Sabah, Malaysia


Megaderma spasma, Taman Negara, Malaysia


Hipposideros larvatus, Taman Negara, Malaysia


Emballonera monticola, Taman Negara, Malaysia


Hipposideros sp, Taman Negara, Malaysia. This bat night roosted in a hide I was staying in.


Cynoteris sp, Way Kambas NP, Sumatra, Indonesia. Several of these were day roosting in small old shacks.

[Chris Smith]

Awesome!

-Chris

[Rags]

Hi Curtis, thanks very much for the ID on the Cambodian Flying Foxes - I had no idea.

Great photos here.

Turned up another bat photo. This one had ended up grounded in a pile of bat guano in Gomantong Cave, Sabah. The cockroaches quickly moved in.


Everything recycled. Gomantong cave.

[Antonsrkn]

Amazing shots! This is exactly the type of stuff I wanted to see, and Im happily surprised to see all these old world species, very cool!

Rags, I love the shots of them coming back to their roost, they're amazing!

Curtis, I really like the look of the Hipposideros bats, really bizarre and cool looking.

[frodaman]

Here are some myotis californicus that I actually flipped under some cap rocks here in Arizona. I was looking for lizards..... Needless to say these guys caught me off guard.




-Jeff

[mrichardson]

A couple of bats from Kruger National Park in South Africa (October, 2012).

The first is a probable Wahlberg's Epauletted Fruit-bat (Epomophorus wahlbergi). Peters' Epauletted Fruit-bat also occurs in the area and the two species can only be seperated in the hand.

The famous Shukuza restaurant bats have now moved on (apparently they were deemed unhygienic and chlorine tablets were used to discourage the roost away from the restaurant). I found this guy under the thatch overhang, just outside the Shukuza camp shop.





The next creature is a Sundevall's Leaf-nosed Bat (Hipposideros commersoni). It was found in the male restrooms of the Nkuhlu picnic site. Apologies for the poor photo but the room was dark and the bat quite high up in the thatch. Taking photos in the confined space of a busy male toilet block can lead to some very funny looks. Trying to explain that you are taking pictures of a bat does little to help matters...

[Mark Hows]

[quote="mrichardson"]A couple of bats from Kruger National Park in South Africa (October, 2012).



The next creature is a Sundevall's Leaf-nosed Bat (Hipposideros commersoni). It was found in the male restrooms of the Nkuhlu picnic site. Apologies for the poor photo but the room was dark and the bat quite high up in the thatch. Taking photos in the confined space of a busy male toilet block can lead to some very funny looks. Trying to explain that you are taking pictures of a bat does little to help matters...



Mike,

great shots, I had to take some gecko photos in the ladies on one trip, now try explaining that!



Mark

[BillMcGighan]

When we camp in a National Forest for a few days, we often set out hummingbird feeders, especially in the south west where there are several species of hummingbirds.

.
In a recent trip to SW AZ, we put out 2 feeders, and quickly had hummingbirds around them.






As I was told by good guy and herper, Terry Cox, there is a night shift that will deplete the supply of nectar!
I believe what we had here were Mexican Long-tongued Bats:










Here’s a small video of the mayhem after dark:

[chrish]

Wow. Great shots so far. I love photographing bats, although I suck at identifying them.

Jamaican Fruit Bat (Artebius cf. jamaicensis) - Palenque, Mexico



Cozumelan Golden Bat (Mimon cozumelae) - Calakmul, Mexico - beautiful species!




California Myotis (Myotis californicus) - female nursing young on a boulder. I took this on the River Road (Brewster Co., Texas) while road cruising one night



more Myotis californicus - San Diego Co, California. - "OWWW....Your standing ...I mean hanging on my foot!"



Townsend's Big-eared Bat (Plecotus townsendii) - San Diego County



Greater Sac-winged Bat (Saccopteryx bilineata) - Calakmul, Mexico



some sort of Glossophagine bat (in center) - Changuinola, Panama



Seba's Short-tailed Bat (Carollia perspicillata) - Changuinola, Panama



Proboscis Bats (Rhynchonycteris naso) - Ecuadorian Amazon - Can you see them? There are six - oops seven (thanks Stohlgren, if helps if you can count!) in the first photo.




Greater/Lesser Bulldog Bat (Noctilio sp.) - Ecuadorian Amazon. I shot about 20 of this shot as the bats fished in front of me in the total dark. This was as close as I got to a decent shot.



and now the big bats - Pteropodidae!

Spectacled Flying Fox (Pteropus consipicillatus) - mother and young - Cairns, Australia



Grey-headed Flying Fox (Pteropus poliocephalus) - Sydney, Australia



Little Red Flying Fox (Pteropus scapularis) - near Mareebra, QLD, Australia - although I doubt the girls call that guy "little"



Insular Flying Fox (Pteropus tonganus) - Taveuni, Fiji





On another note, there is an Inaturalist group collecting sightings and photos of New World Bats. If you are willing to share some photos, I am sure they would love to have the data.

http://www.inaturalist.org/projects/mur ... -el-caribe

OK, that was fun.

[kricket]

Lovely bat shots! One of my favorite mammals. I used to live in Brisbane, Australia on the 5th floor of a building a block up from the river (across from New Farm Park, if anyone knows where that is). Every night the flying foxes would fly past at dusk, right at the level of my floor of the building. I was lucky enough to live in a flat with a wall of windows and they'd fly so close I could reach out and touch them! (Of course, if I actually left the windows open so that I would be able to reach out and touch them then they flew far enough away from the windows so that I couldn't actually touch them. Sigh...) There was a giant fig tree right outside the building and the bats would make so much noise scrapping in the tree over the figs that I had to sleep with the windows shut. But I loved them despite that (besides, everything that can be noisy in Australia is exceedingly noisy - I'm looking at you 4am kookaburra!). Anyway, I only had a crappy digital camera back then with no zoom capabilities, so here is my extremely subpar addition to the bat photo collection:


Flying foxes, Brisbane, Australia by happylittleclouds, on Flickr

[Stohlgren]

Are you sure there are not 7 here, Chris?

Proboscis Bats (Rhynchonycteris naso) - Ecuadorian Amazon - Can you see them? There are six in the first photo.

I don't have many bat photos worth showing, but I'll throw some up to add to the diversity of this thread.


Eastern small-footed Myotis (Myotis leibii). These commonly roost under rocks on glades and balds. I have seen them in Missouri, Georgia, and North Carolina while herping.


Rafinesque's big-eared bat (Corynorhinus rafinesquii) under a bridge.



Eastern Pipistrelle (Perimyotis subflavus)



And these last two are horrible, I apologize, but again, posted to add to the diversity.

Silver-haired bat (Lasionycteris noctivagans)


Eastern red bat (Lasiurus borealis)

[chrish]

kricket,

Love that photo! One of my fond memories of my "formative years" living in Sydney was the Flying Foxes passing over our house every night at dusk. They really make quite a spectacle as the mass of giant bats flies silently over.

[Antonsrkn]

Nice, thanks for posting everyone love the photos we have accumulated here over time! We have a ton of different species and locations represented, lets keep them trickling in!

Here is a recent one (or 3) of my photos of a species I haven't identified from Sabah, Borneo, Malaysia. We accidentally disturbed this guy and he spent the next few minutes flying the same general path indoors, i was able to get some photos. Any ID help is appreciated!


http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/9917360794/

[Antonsrkn]

Here's another one also from Borneo, I would also appreciate any ID help if anyone knows. I doubt there are enough identifying characteristics in the photo but maybe someone knows which Bornean/Malaysian species tend to roost like this?

EDIT: IDed as a wooly bat, Kerivoula sp. By Afribats http://www.inaturalist.org/projects/afribats

http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/10012563974/

[Antonsrkn]

Hey guys, I got ID help on the last bat I posted and was asked to pass along a request for help and info.

Here is a project trying to gather up some info on the bats of Africa and surrounding islands. If you have any bat observations from thereabouts please participate! I know some of us do! Here's a chance for citizen science to help out.

http://www.inaturalist.org/projects/afribats

I took a look at the site and it seems very interesting.

About:

The bat fauna of Africa and surrounding islands boasts nearly 300 species, but the distributions of many species are poorly known. Despite the crucial role of bats (Chiroptera) as pollinators and seed dispersers of plants as well as predators of insects, one-fifth of the bat species in Africa are threatened, and populations are declining due to habitat loss, disturbance and destruction of roost sites, hunting for bushmeat, land use, and pesticides. AfriBats seeks to mobilize both amateur and professional knowledge through the iNaturalist platform. These data will be used for scientific projects and informed conservation actions, which require robust data on the distributions of bat species.