hey little bat!

Again, these were taken with my point-and-shoot camera set to HI ISO. They're not spectacular, but I was happy to capture at least something without using a flash, which I don't think you should do at a zoo, especially for the nocturnal animals. Anyway, this is a great exhibit. You can really observe a lot of interesting bat behavior. Fruit bats , also known as flying foxes or megabats, have sweet faces and rely on sight and smell, not echolocation for navigation and foraging (the exception being the Egyptian Fruit Bat). Some eat fruit, aiding in seed dispersal; others drink nectar, actually pollinating the plants. Although not all megabats are necessarily large (the smallest is only 2-3 inches), the largest of the flying foxes reaches a wingspan of 6 feet! The bats at the Houston Zoo (shown above) are Straw-Colored Fruit Bats (Eidolon helvum). Houston Zoo Fruit Bat video BCI's Flying Foxes

After two failed attempts to go to the Houston Zoo on the weekend with Nick (it was perfect weather both times so everyone wanted to be there and there was absolutely no place to park!) I finally made it there with my mom last week. Of course, the parking situation didn't seem much better - school buses were taking up half the parking lot and cars the rest. It only dawned on us why this was when we got up to the entrance, after miles of walking, and saw the huge Earth Day banner. Oh, yeah! The place that we parked had a 3 hour time limit, so we had to get moving. (And I had to get cottoncandy! I'm not a huge fan of sweets but pure sugar in cloud-like form is still heavenly to me. And I eat it like there's no tomorrow! Hence the tummy-ache.) We managed to see quite a bit. Wake Up, Toby! The "world's cutest animal" is always napping! (Because Red Pandas , also known as firefoxes, are crepuscular, or most active at dawn and dusk.) I went again with Nick a few d...