A week ago today, as my husband was outside grilling, he noticed a bat flitting about! He called me over to confirm and then we observed about 15-20 flying around our house and quite low over the street around 8:45pm. This is the first time since moving here last October that we've observed bats! Around our house there are plenty of squirrels, birds, sometimes frogs, even a small owl once! But never bats! I was absolutely ecstatic!
Peters' Epauletted Fruit Bat (Epomophorus crypturus), Kruger National Park - photo by Peet van Schalkwyk Have you ever noticed how under certain lighting conditions some animal's eyes seem to glow? Animals that are nocturnal hunters - and a few of them that are not - have something called eyeshine . Eyeshine is the light that we see reflected back from the animal's tapetum lucidum (a membrane behind the animal's retina). Light enters the eye, passes through the retina, strikes the reflective membrane, and is reflected back through the eye toward the light source. This phenomenon makes the most of what little light there is at night for these nocturnal creatures. a moth with pink eyeshine Humans can display the red-eye effect in flash photography, but we do not have a tapetum lucidum , and thus, do not have eyeshine. Eyeshine is best observed by wearing a head lamp or holding a flashlight at eye level against your temple because the light is reflected right back into ...
I have found a dead little bat on my road and then later in the evening I notice one flying. Can they hurt us? I have live here nearly 10 years and this is the first I have ever seen one.
ReplyDeleteKeep in mind, I'm no expert, but bats will not go out of their way to hurt humans. Treat a bat as you would any wild animal - simply don't touch it. If you do see a live bat on the ground, it most likely means it is sick or injured.
ReplyDelete