A male hammer-headed bat in the Congo, where scientists, including Sarah Olson from WCS, are monitoring the species. "There is something about his Yoda-like ears," writes Olson of this male, "curvaceous lip folds, and glassy brown eyes that surprise and remind us that we have so much to learn about the world." Read about them and listen to their rhythmic sounds on our WCS Wild View blog. http://bit.ly/2LQjxzA
- blog.wcs.org / hammer-headed-bat-ambassador-congo-africa-shark-week
- blog.wcs.org / hammer-headed-bat-congo-africa
- FaceBook Wildlife Conservation Society
"AS A CHARISMATIC BAT AMBASSADOR, this male hammer-headed fruit bat’s (Hypsignathus monstrosus) earlier profile shot enthralled readers of this blog and social media alike. There is something about his Yoda-like ears, curvaceous lip folds, and glassy brown eyes that surprise and remind us that we have so much to learn about the world.
What a picture can’t capture are the rhythmic sounds of the males at the lek (recorded by ©Jack Bradbury from The Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology), a site where they congregate and call to entice females to come and mate. It’s actually a bit like a tree-top swamp of croaking frogs generated by the male’s greatly enlarged larynx and vocal cords as well as distinctive air sacs, cheek pouches, and nasal folds.
We captured him the previous night, having our best netting success when the male bat choir is the loudest. We measured his morphometrics, collected swabs, and blood to analyze later for viruses, and observed him throughout the day for any adverse behavioral response to the customized collar-affixed GPS tracker that weighed less than 5% of his body mass. Moments after this shot, we released him and he methodically took flight using his three foot wingspan to fly into the crepuscular glow."
"I’M SIMPLY AWESTRUCK by hammer-headed fruit bats (Hypsignathus monstrosus). Close-up any given feature, eye, fur, nose, ear, wing, or foot, is extraordinary. In hand, whiskers appear in patterns seemingly unique to each individual, and the nasal and lip folds of the adult males, like the one shown, provide a sculptural finish to the overall moose-head look. As we handle them to collect samples, they show distinct behaviors ranging from docile to teeth masher, hence the thick leather gloves. Functionally, as the largest fruit bats in Africa (males weigh in around one pound), they are flying seed dispersal machines, critical to equatorial forest health. In fact, this last mission we captured one, fig-in-mouth-in-flight.
The GPS trackers we deployed, and seen on this bat, will help us understand the ecology and behavior of hammer-headed bats. The Wildlife Conservation Society is partnering with the U.S. National Institutes of Health because these same bats are suspected to be asymptomatic reservoirs for Ebola virus. Aside from threats to human health, this deadly virus is linked to massive declines in populations of western lowland gorillas in Congo and Gabon. Our job as scientists is to find a way to prevent Ebola outbreaks and help conserve these bats for future generations, one bat at time."
What a picture can’t capture are the rhythmic sounds of the males at the lek (recorded by ©Jack Bradbury from The Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology), a site where they congregate and call to entice females to come and mate. It’s actually a bit like a tree-top swamp of croaking frogs generated by the male’s greatly enlarged larynx and vocal cords as well as distinctive air sacs, cheek pouches, and nasal folds.
We captured him the previous night, having our best netting success when the male bat choir is the loudest. We measured his morphometrics, collected swabs, and blood to analyze later for viruses, and observed him throughout the day for any adverse behavioral response to the customized collar-affixed GPS tracker that weighed less than 5% of his body mass. Moments after this shot, we released him and he methodically took flight using his three foot wingspan to fly into the crepuscular glow."
"I’M SIMPLY AWESTRUCK by hammer-headed fruit bats (Hypsignathus monstrosus). Close-up any given feature, eye, fur, nose, ear, wing, or foot, is extraordinary. In hand, whiskers appear in patterns seemingly unique to each individual, and the nasal and lip folds of the adult males, like the one shown, provide a sculptural finish to the overall moose-head look. As we handle them to collect samples, they show distinct behaviors ranging from docile to teeth masher, hence the thick leather gloves. Functionally, as the largest fruit bats in Africa (males weigh in around one pound), they are flying seed dispersal machines, critical to equatorial forest health. In fact, this last mission we captured one, fig-in-mouth-in-flight.
The GPS trackers we deployed, and seen on this bat, will help us understand the ecology and behavior of hammer-headed bats. The Wildlife Conservation Society is partnering with the U.S. National Institutes of Health because these same bats are suspected to be asymptomatic reservoirs for Ebola virus. Aside from threats to human health, this deadly virus is linked to massive declines in populations of western lowland gorillas in Congo and Gabon. Our job as scientists is to find a way to prevent Ebola outbreaks and help conserve these bats for future generations, one bat at time."
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