A rare white fruit bat with serious sunburn is recovering well after being rescued by volunteers in south-east Queensland.
The grey-headed flying fox has been named Tal'ngai Dha'run, which means 'white wing' in the local Yugambeh Indigenous dialect.
The unique creature was among 300 other juvenile bats saved in a major rescue at Canungra in the Gold Coast hinterland in late November.
Australian Bat Clinic director Trish Wimberley said volunteers had been watching the young bat for about a month when rescuers stumbled across him on the ground.
"They had their headlamps on, they were walking back to the car and they thought 'Oh god, we've left some paper down there on the ground, we'd just better clean that up'," she said.
"As they went over it moved and it was Tal'ngai.
"They picked him up, ran in and said 'We've got the white bat'."
Tal'ngai's pigmentation comes from a rare genetic mutation called leucism, but otherwise he is no different from his kin.
"He's a white fluffy bat, but no different to the other greys. He acts just like them, he interacts with the other greys," Ms Wimberley said.
"It's just that he has these beautiful markings."
Pink skin makes bat vulnerable
The bat's translucent wings and pink skin make it vulnerable to predators and especially susceptible to sun damage.
"You can see all the little bones, the little bone structure, and you can actually see the structure of his fingers and all the little capillaries," Ms Wimberley said.
"You don't need to take x-rays with him — he is an x-ray."
The white bat will stay in captivity after his siblings are released.
"Because he's been sunburned already … he won't survive out there in the wild," Ms Wimberley said.
"He'll end up with some really bad sunburns and probably cancers as well."
Ms Wimberley said it would be up to the Queensland Department of Environment to decide what happened to Tal'ngai in the long run.
But the clinic would like to keep him as an educational animal.
"Hopefully he will the spokesperson for his species," Ms Wimberley said.
The rest of the flying foxes will be released in early March.
- abc.net.au / rare-white-flying-fox-rescued-in-south-east-queensland
- External Link: Rare white flying fox
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