Chiroptrivia 2007-2008 
"Life is a beautiful and strange creature that appears at a window, flies swiftly through the banquet and is gone."
The Venerable Bede
and there can be few more strange and wonderful creatures than a bat.
So this section is dedicated to the strange and wonderful things which make bat group members laugh, agree with or wonder at. .
If you have something you'd like to post here, quotations, facts, trivia or whatever email us
Posted October 2008
More about mud
A new paper suggests another reason why some bats eat mud - to help them deal with toxins which are in the food they eat .
Citation: Voigt CC, Capps KA, Dechmann DKN, Michener RH, Kunz TH (2008) Nutrition or Detoxification: Why Bats Visit Mineral Licks of the Amazonian Rainforest. PLoS One 3(4): e2011. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0002011
A mechanism for the way in which bats are killed by wind turbines has been suggested. A new study shows that the moving blades cause a drop in pressure that makes the delicate lungs of bats suddenly expand, bursting the tissue's blood vessels. This is known as a barotrauma, and is well-known to scuba divine blades. Bats found dead at the base of wind turbines often shown no obvious sign of trauma - as might be expected if they had flown into the turbine blade.
For more from New Scientist on the effect of wind turbines
A British teenager attracted nationwide publicity when she reported finding a bat in her bra
In Bedfordshire two years ago we had a report of a bat found in a pair of trousers which had been left out to try. Fortunately the owner hadn't ironed them
One of Escher's tessellations features bats
For more on Escher's artwork
Posted July 2008
In 1997 Bob Dylan was hospitalised with histoplasmosis a fungal lung disease caused by Histoplasma capsulatum which is common in bat droppings.
The world's noisiest bat
Noctilio albiventris, the lesser bulldog bat was found to reach an ear shattering 137dB.
That's noisier than a rock concert and above the pain threshold in humans
Photograph of Noctilio albiventris fromhttp://www.barcodeoflife.org/barcode/batsbirds/
Click here for more on Noctilio arbiventris' noisiness at New Scientist
Bats as eco-warriors
One of the problems facing conservationists is how to recolonise rainforests once they have been cleared. Scientists in Costa Rica have placed bat boxes on the margins of cleared areas This attracted bats and their droppings did the rest. Between 20 and 50% more seeds geminated and they were mainly pioneer plants which encourage natural succession.
For more details of bats as eco warriors, visit New Scientist
Photograph of "eco warriors" Artebius watsoni Thomas' fruit eating bat from the Smithsonion 
Illustration from Bathead. a site full of bat themed military insignia
Posted April 2008
In Nov 2007 Science Daily reported on research which shows that some fruit bats gets craving during pregnancy and feed at salt licks to ensure they get enough minerals for their fetuses to develop.
Click here for more including a photo of salt eating bats
Tate Prize winning artist Jeremy Deller 's competition run in conjunction with The Royal Institute of British Architects and the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts has announced the winners of their bat house competition. see more winners
Researchers have shown that the Chinese noctule Nyctalus plancyii is responsive to magnetic fields. The researchers suggest that this bat, uniquely amongst mammals , may use the polarity of magnetic fields to help it navigate
Click here to see the original paper on Nyctalus plancyii and magnetic fields
This image of Nyctalus plancyii is from Bristol University's Bat's in China site and is used with permission.The site's a gem - do check it out
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and talking of China and Bats, Zhong Kui being led by a bat is a traditional Chinese New Year Picture. He is the God that drives away evil, captures demons and brings good lucks. Bats are a very auspicious animal to the Chinese and are features is many of his pictures.
This bat was found encased in a stalagmite. It was either very dead when it fell there or very very slow moving
Click here for the site this stalagmite image came from
This is a ceramic made by the Mogolio people from the Mimbres Valley in New Mexico between AD 100 and 1150 . According to Princeton on line bats were often depicted with crosses on their wings, which was similar to the Mayan representations of killer bats which had crossed bones on their wings
Bat or Bata is the name of an ancient egyptian cow goddess. She was originally a deification to the Milky Way and could see into both the past and the future Although rarely depicted in sculpture she was popular on amulets
This fabulous sculpture of fruit bats can be seen in the Art Gallery of New South Wales
To reach the gallery you walk through a garden containing guess what-
a nice example of life imitating art
By Lin Onus 1948-1996 Yorta Yorta, Melbourne, Vic. 99 fibre glass polychromed fruit bats, Hills Hoist, polychrome wooden disks.
"I have been regularly asked to which school or movement do I belong? Apart from some obvious responses. I guess that what I would have to say is that I belong to the Bower Bird School. You know the one - picking up bits and pieces, here and there..."Lin Olnus quote taken from this web site
One of the features of the Bedfordshire Bat group newsletter is a series entitled "101 uses for a dead bat." This was number 63 - "End up as a model for Lucien Freud."
This is a plant called the Bat faced flower Cuphea llavea and comes from Mexico
African bat bugs have a bizarre sex life. The males don' t use the standard point of entry into the female's vagina but instead punch their way in through her abdomen some of the females have evolved "paragenitals" on their bodies to minimise the damage this causes. Now it has been found that males have developed these too because this piercing activity seems pretty indiscriminate
The National Geographic website has more. on bat bugs
Stuck for something to do now that bats are hibernating ? - here's something to fill those long hours
There are some very talented people out there making incredible origami bats
Bat by Miyajima Noboru
Another brilliant exponent is Michael G La Fosse
For a Bat Conservation article on his work
He also makes simpler (it's all relative) creatures
Instructions for the happy good luck bat
shown on the left
and for people like me that can't fold a table napkin here's an easier one to try (Mine still ended up looking like road kill)
Instructions
and a slightly more complicated one
and if you can't follow written instructions try
You Tube - How to make a simple bat
Illustration from http://www.police999.com/wildlife/bats1.htmYou can tell whether you are holding bat poo or mouse poo in your hands by rubbing it between your fingers. If it crumble to dust it is a bat dropping, if it sticks to your finger s it is a mouse droppings and you need to go and wash your hands
Posted October 2007
A Serbian gentleman we met whilst out mist netting told us that his parents use to carry a bat's wing in their pocket as a good luck charm, in the same way that people used to carry a rabbit's foot in the UK
Summer 2007 in Britain has been a difficult on for bats . In Bedfordshire we didn't have as much rain as many other areas, but we did notice there were fewer bats about and more bats were being reported in houses or found abandoned. This was a national trend.(see more from the BBC website ) but it did give rise to this amazing photo.
Find out about this bat on the BBC website
The naked bat Cheiromeles torquatus of Malaysia is one of the few creatures in the world who can claim to be parasitised by an earwig. The earwig hangs onto folds in the bat's flesh. It wouldn't be able to get a grip on fur.
image from the BBC website 
The nectar feeding bat Glossophage soricina which weighs in at 1g can consume 1.5 times its body weight of nectar in a day. They are incredibly efficient at metabolising this sugar and within half an hour are utilising it all without first converting it to glycogen. The fittest of athletes can only convert 30% of the energy they get from power drinks in he same period of time
We have already told you that Io ia the great dawn bat has the shortest latin name in the world, but how did it get it? One of the website's Australian fans contacted us with this question and thanks to bat group member Richard Lawrence, we now have the answer.
Ia io was named by Oldfield Thomas in 1902. Io was a woman from "classical times" .Io was pursued by notoriously randy father of the gods Zeus One day Zeus noticed the maiden and lusted after her. Some say she rejected his advances until he caused her own father to drive her out into the fields. Here, Zeus covered her with clouds to hide her from the eyes of his jealous wife, Hera, who nonetheless came to investigate. In a vain attempt to hide his crimes, Zeus turned himself into a white cloud and. transformed Io into a beautiful white heifer. Hera was not fooled. She demanded the heifer as a present
Zeus & Io by Corregio (1532) can be seen at the Louvre
and Mr Thomas's reason for using it is to name a bat?: "like many women a bat is essentially flighty"
and just who is this unmitigated chauvinist?
Oldfield Thomas (1858-1929) was the Curator in charge of Mammals at the British Museum. He came up with over 200 new names in his lifetime - and was born in the Bedfordshire village of Millbrook.
Painting by John Ernest Breun
Posted July 2007
If you like biological trivia, this site is a must. A site on biological nomenclature might not on the face of it be a source of delight - but trust me it is
Erechthias beeblebroxi Robinson & Nelson, 1993 (tineid) with a false head; after Zaphod Beeblebrox, two-headed character from Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
RAF 9 Squadron has a bat on its insignia. it is not alone
"The first use of bats as an Official squadron insignia and their representation on the squadrons' aircraft is found in the United States Navy. Ironically, Observation Squadron VOS-3S (circa 1923) had been supplied with scout aircraft (Vought O2U-1 Corsair) that were so poorly suited to observation duties that both pilots and the observers complained of being "blind as bats". During this time, observation squadrons which often flew out of Guantanamo Bay, designated a "Cuban bat" (perhaps Artibeus?) should represent their "blind" status and the bat logo was used by the squadron throughout its history ... Aircraft pictured below is a Vought O2U-1 Corsair that flew with squadron VOS-3
S from the USN Cruiser SS Raleigh"
On of the most bizarre injuries the bat group ever had to deal with was a self inflating pipistrelle It had a puncture wound to its chest which meant that as it flew it was pumping air into its chest cavity. So swollen was it, that it was initially identified as a serotine. Those of you who like a happy ending will be pleased to learn it made a full recovery
We didn't think to take a photo, but bat world in the USA had a similar case and did They also had the wit to name the patient Puff .click here for more information on the Batworld case
A pipistrelle weighs about the same as a credit card
A Noctule weighs about the same as a dessert spoon
A barbastelle weighs about the same as a £1 coin
( the moral of this is, never ever leave a bat enthusiast indoors on a rainy day with time and a spring balance on their hands .)
Posted April 2007
Courtship of the fruit bat Pteropus giganteus consists of the male shrieking shrilly into the ear of the female until she gives in
Australian flying foxes are more sophisticated in the seduction stakes. For an x-rated description click here
This beautiful plant is Tacca chantrieri - also known as the Bat Lily or the Black Bat flower. It grows in the Yunnan Province of China,where it is sometimes called the Tiger's Whiskers Plant
Picture from
http://www.dutchbulbs.com/bulbs/bat-flower-tacca-chantrieri/index.html
Scientists reported in January 2007 that they had identified an entirely new species of bat which is unusual as it has suckers to help it hold on to leaves
Click here to find out more
Vampires share blood with their friendsFor more vampire trivia
Bats play an important role in Japan, where they are seen as a sign of good luck. It was not unusual to use bat images in textile design . The Japanese artist Kesai Eisen included them in paintings and textile.
Try http://www.printsofjapan.com/keisai_eisen1.htm for a site with many other exciting examples of batty japanese designs (keep scrolling down the page once you get there)
Posted January 2007
American big brown bats (Epesicus fuscus) can navigate using the earth's magnetic field using an internal compass to guide them home, a trick known to pigeons naked mole rats and siberian hamsters
Click here to go to the New Scientist site for more details.
"It's like a cat being able to lap milk from 2 feet away"
Nathan Muchula, University of Florida
Anoura fistulata is a small bat from Ecuador. Its only about the size of a mouse, but has a tongue which is half as long again as its body. When not in use it stores it in the space between its heart and its sternum. It is the sole pollinator of a long tubed flower Centropagum nigricans. It has the longest tongue to body ratio of any mammal
Click here to go to New Scientist for more details and a photo
Noctules will purr loudly sometimes when held in the hand. Pipistrelles do the same, only more genteelly. We like to think this is a sign that it's happy, in the same way a cat purrs.
According to english folk tradition a bat's head placed in a mouse hole will cause the mouse to flea.
illustration( c) Joan Childs
You are probably familiar with the bat logo that is used for Bacardi rum. In the 19th century, Don Facundo and his wife Doña Amalia Lucia Victoria Moreau were establishing the Bacardi empire. In 1862 Amalia noticed a colony of fruit bats living near the distillery and thought of the local superstition which attached bats to good health, fortune and family unity, she thought that a bat would be a good symbol for their product. Also, the largely illiterate local population would be able to distinguish their product by the logo.
A truly tasteless quote .I do hope he really said it. I also hope he didn't really do it.
"I bit the head off a live bat the other night. It was like eating a Crunchie wrapped in chamois leather" Ozzie Osbourne
You are probably familiar with the bat logo that is used for Bacardi rum. In the 19th century, Don Facundo and his wife Doña Amalia Lucia Victoria Moreau were establishing the Bacardi empire. In 1862 Amalia noticed a colony of fruit bats living near the distillery and thought of the local superstition which attached bats to good health, fortune and family unity, she thought that a bat would be a good symbol for their product. Also, the largely illiterate local population would be able to distinguish their product by the logo.
but others have also used bats as trademarks. In August 1926 Horace Bates founded Bates Cycles at 2a Swete Street, London E13. His brother E.G. Bates joined the company in 1927 and the firm changed its name to "Bates Brothers" shortly afterwards. They manufactured all types of cycle frames and cycles, and chose this lovely bat as their logo. Click here for more information on Bates bicycles.
Nagwurite kareere maigo is a Nigerian proverb which translates as "He has extracted bat's teeth" meaning " He has done something extra-ordinary"