Guardians of the Night Sky

Bat Appreciation Day: Guardians of the Night Sky As the sun sets on April 17th, the spotlight turns to the silent heroes of the night—the bats. Bat Appreciation Day invites us to explore the fascinating world of these nocturnal creatures, shedding light on their crucial role in maintaining ecological balance. But did you know that you can actively contribute to bat conservation right here in…

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*crashes through wall like the Kool-Aid Man*

Y'ALL GOTTA LEARN ABOUT THIS COOL-ASS BAT

for months i had this obsession with wing shape.

the majority of feathered wings have an underlying musculature almost akin to a thumb. the primary feathers - sometimes called "flight feathers" - are those long feathers that seem to "hang off" of the wing. they're actually connected to the "hand" (literally the manus) of the bird and can be individually rotated. they are responsible for the majority of thrust during the downstroke, and while the number of them depends on speciation; the majority of birds will have between 9 and 11 of these feathers (as opposed to secondary flight feathers; their shorter partners, which vary from 6 to 40).

i started attaching them to the silhouettes of people, drawing angels tumbling out of buildings and running late to work and skipping class to smoke outside of a 7-11. i drew angels eating apples and doing their homework and pushing their hair back from their eyes and holding a pencil. the margins of all of my poems had feathers raining down the side of the page.

i was in the worst depression of my life and had decided i was giving up on the idea of freedom. i would be a happy wife to a mediocre husband and the angels would come and pass their wings over my eyes and let me feel nothing but numbness. i would have a life like an echo. i would never enter my body without knocking first - it would carry all this weight, and i would be sleeping peacefully, my soul somewhere out there, flying with wings.

she laughed and came over and sat next to me, and smelled of lavender. whenever she talked, a strange harmony stole into my heart; something that was only memory and no words. not an echo - an answer.

inside of her sketchbook were hundreds of pictures of birds.

Miami Wilds would be bad for families and wildlife. Commission should hit the brakes

On Sept. 6, Miami-Dade County commissioners will vote on one of the worst projects they have considered in years. The Miami Wilds waterpark project is a taxpayer boondoggle that is as environmentally destructive as it is bad for Miami families — with a taxpayer price tag so high you would think it was a waterslide made of gold.

Bat Conservation International asks the commission to stand up against this deeply flawed project — and we are asking taxpayers to call their commissioners ahead of this critical vote to encourage them to not to rubber stamp something not in the interests of local residents and their families.

The Miami Wilds water park would be built in endangered species’ habitat next door to Zoo Miami. Millions in taxpayers dollars would subsidize a project that makes it more expensive to visit the zoo and jeopardizes one of the most important biodiversity hotspots in Miami-Dade County.

Bat Conservation International (BCI) has been working with our Miami-based staff and local partners for nearly 20 years to save the rarest and most endangered bat in the United States — the Florida bonneted bat — from extinction.

Zoo Miami is a biodiversity hotspot, hosting overlapping critical habitats for several federally endangered species and the largest fragment of pine rockland outside of Everglades National Park. Because the project’s location is an active study site for the Florida bonneted bat, we know conclusively that the area is not only currently occupied by the bats but is heavily used when the bats need to find food. The land proposed for development is a large, dark, open space, which is exactly what the night-flying Florida bonneted bats need to survive.

In the proposed location, the Miami Wilds offers inadequate financial return for the county, jeopardizes Miami’s unique natural environment and increases recreational costs to families visiting the zoo.

And the taxpayers of Miami-Dade County have an opportunity to stand up for Miami’s environment, economy and families by voicing their opinion before to the County Commission’s Sept. 6 meeting. Tell commissioners to put the brakes on Miami Wilds.

So im reading this bat book, right. And the guy who wrote the bat book I'm reading (Merlin Tuttle) is like a super famous biologist and conservationist but also he is insane. Pretty much every chapter is like "and here's how I almost died (again) while trying to do bat science"

Like

"and then I almost died bc I didn't bring enough lamp oil and kept exploring further into the cave"

"And then I did cave exploring for years without using a helmet"

"and then I had a gun pointed at me by a moonshiner using a cave to brew"

"And then I almost died being in a boat during a thunderstorm."

"And then I almost died being in a boat during a thunderstorm but this time it was in canada"

"And then I almost froze to death by being in a boat in the rain when it was cold"

"And then I almost died from not being in a boat when there was big waves and rocks"

"And then I got pulled over by the feds bc they thought we were running drugs in our bat research plane"

"And then I almost gave myself carbon dioxide poisoning in a bat cave"

"And then I did give myself ammonia poisoning in that same bat cave"

"And then I had to hide from lions in crocodile water in the middle of the night bc I went out by myself"

"And then we got threatened with spears by bandits that one time"

"And also there was that one time I almost died from charging elephants after letting an elephant charge closer to the car (instead of driving away immediately) so I could get a picture of a charging elephant"

Somehow this man is 82 rn

Conservation groups in Miami have notified the National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today that they intend to sue the agencies for failing to protect the federally endangered Florida bonneted bat, Miami tiger beetle, Bartram’s scrub-hairstreak and other imperiled species from the destructive effects of the Miami Wilds water park and retail development in south Florida.

Miami Wilds plans to build a 27.5-acre water park, retail area, hotel and more than 40 acres of associated parking lots. Miami-Dade County approved a lease agreement for the Miami Wilds site on June 22, 2022.

The notice was filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, Bat Conservation International, Miami Blue Chapter of the North American Butterfly Association, and Tropical Audubon Society (17th of August, 2022)

I will link the organizations taking action below - visibility of this issue helps their cause, as does donating/volunteering/seeing how else you can contribute:

Center for Biological Diversity

Bat Conservation International

Miami Blue Chapter of the North American Butterfly Association

Tropical Audubon Society

Pipistrelle bats have a magnetic compass and calibrate it at sunset, according to a new study. An international team of researchers led by the University of Oldenburg has used behavioral experiments to show that two different components of the Earth's magnetic field influence the orientation of these animals. Like birds, they seem to be sensitive to magnetic inclination. The soprano pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pygmaeus) weighs only a few grams, but it is estimated that members of this small bat species cover thousands of kilometers every year on their nocturnal migrations from north-eastern to south-western Europe. Precisely how they find their way across such long distances in the dark remains unclear.

Continue Reading.

IF YOU DON'T LIKE BATS WE CAN'T BE FRIENDS

🦇🖤🦇

[Not My Art]

Bats as Keystone Species

Have you ever heard of the term “keystone species” before? This type of species is crucial to a healthy, stable environment. They play an integral part in one’s ecosystem. If they happen to become threatened or extinct, the loss will hurt the environment. For instance, an example of a keystone species is the gopher tortoise. Their habitat used to range as far west as Big Thicket National Preserve and would expand to the east coast. With their numbers dwindling because of the loss of the long-leaf pine tree, they are now a threatened species in most southern states. Why is this species important? They would dig these burrows underground and provide shelter for hundreds of different animals, including the gopher frog and the gopher beetle. You can only find these two animals inside a gopher tortoise burrow. So, if this tortoise becomes extinct, what will later happen to the gopher frog and the gopher beetle? Bats are also a keystone player; their numbers are over 1,400 species that can be found worldwide. What would happen if all 1,400 species of bats became extinct overnight? What are some of the first negative effects we would notice with their overnight extinction? First, there would be a huge increase in the bug population, which will later bring more diseases to humans and other life. There would also be a decrease in the number of fruits and vegetables being produced because some bats are good at dispersing seeds.

via: Carlsbad Caverns National Park

I love reading zoology research articles so much - yeah often there will be a ridiculous amount of academic language and scientists should be pushing to make knowledge more widely accessible but there's something about it all that is just unintentionally comedic. Like the formality of it all and the funding required and the number of scientists being like yeah this is my life's work and it is incredibly significant and then they'll show you the animal and it's just-

Hey, folks! Just a reminder that my newest chapbook is available on my website at https://rebeccalexa.com/books/ with both paperback and ebook editions. However, if you want the ebook for free, just join my monthly email newsletter at https://rebeccalexa.com/news-updates/ and you'll get it emailed to you!

There was a question about how regular bat calls differ from "songs" after we posted about "singing Silver-haired Bats". Here is a series of "search phase calls" from a Little Brown Myotis. They are a series of the same frequency calls, generally with the same between call interval, represented by the up and down lines on the sonogram. This series also includes a couple of feeding buzzes at the end of the search phase calls - bats reduce the amount of energy they put into each call, and shorten the between call interval time (so quieter, faster calling) which gives them more information more quickly (important when you are hunting a moving target). Echolocation allows bats to "see" with sound. They can "see" different textures of insects, differentiate size and they get information about the direction of movement of that target. Hopefully this file format works. If you click on it - you should get the sound of both the search phase call and the feeding buzz!

Trachops & Tungara. A bat locates its dinner via tuning into a frog’s broadcast to attract a mate.

Attribution: Alexander T. Baugh

BMC Ecology And Evolution Image Competition

Bats are key to stopping the next pandemic, says new study : Goats and Soda : NPR

President Biden vetoed bills Tuesday that would have stripped protections from two critically endangered species, the northern long-eared bat and lesser prairie chicken.

“It’s disturbing that congressional Republicans pushed so hard to annihilate bats that eat millions of insects a year, as well as lesser prairie chickens and their elaborate breeding dances,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “President Biden did the right thing here. He could do even more by signing an executive order to stop the extinction crisis that threatens to undermine the web of life we all depend on.”

The bat has been devastated by an introduced fungal pathogen that causes the disease known as white-nose syndrome, which has killed millions of bats and spread across the country since 2006. The lesser prairie chicken’s grassland habitats on the Southern Plains have disappeared under plows and oil derricks.

PİGEONS OF THE BATOCENE:THE PİGEONBATS

⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️ Look @the6planet8ofbats im not ranting,i misinderstood this,That's all correct this now,because look,tell me What you will say when i share this drawing??? İ am absolutely.... SORRY,THANK YOU!! ⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️

Chhota-sahaayak Means in Little helper in İndian language

İn early batocene,some bats into evolved different clades like Kallipa Masked Pigeon bat (Pteropus Batostratus) a species of flying fox like Bismarck Masked Flying Fox (Pteropus capistratus) lived into Bismarck Archipelago,this flying Fox are ancestor of PİGEONBATS a group of Bird-like bats become into various niches.

Guppy striker (Poeciliovenator aodontus) a fish-eating species of pigeonbat hunts like many guppies,but guppystrikers are not only Green-Ruffed Chhota-sahaayak (Chhotabatus chlorous) a fish-eaters hunts guppies,Long tailed Vaquitalover (Phocoenophilus longicauda) a commensalistic species have 1.34 long tails,but every Pigeonbat are no usual,unusual Peacewrist (Otiotherium trinyx) much like Pterowrist by @tribbetherium but not aggressive this Large flyers Eat Tropical fruits,in subfamily Otiotherinae.

But Peacewrists are not monotypic @tribbetherium oingo-like Red Spotted Tapirilla (Pteroingo rufus) a closest relatives of peacewrists and Prodon (Prodonta myria) are really have 100+ small teeth but otiotherines are not only subfamily of pigeonbats a subfamily called Loinae,type species is Short winged Loina (Loinus trochiimimus) a hummingbird-like member,other relatives like...

Nocturnal Quetzak (Pharomachobatus nyctus) and Yellow Peatail (Pavocauda aurantius)