Fantastic Bats and Where to Find Them ( Part

June 24, 2021

Fantastic Bats and Where to Find Them ( Part - 1)

Savandurga hills

Bats fascinate me, and I enjoy researching them. I used to travel across the country in search of different bat species. For such research, I volunteer at several organisations. One of them is Bat Conservation India Trust. One such adventure was to Savandurga, Asia's largest monolith, a popular hiking, trekking, and pilgrimage destination. My aim was to look for caves beneath the hill and check for bats. In search of caves, I started walking through the woods, looking for the nightcrawlers' while keeping an eye out for the Bonelli's eagle nest perched high on the mountain cliff. We went on a never-ending search for our mystical beings. Many people have preconceptions about bats, but you'll start to love them like family as you get to know them. "Chiroptera, one with hand-like wings commonly called bats". As you, once I also had all the misconceptions about these creatures. Every Misconception started when I first watched the movie Dracula and Van Helsing. Vampire stories were always haunting to me. I never had an interest to study bats, but every change is an opportunity to learn. When you walk your life confused, distorted, and in pain, all the small life changes can give a new perspective. I also had such a change during my post-graduation to study bats with some well-known experts in the field.

Bats are well-known for their frightening legends, but in reality, bats do not play any part in such tales; in fact, bats assist humans in various ways. Bats, like the majority of animals, have developed social behaviour. Only bats are capable of flight. They're one-of-a-kind due to their ability to fly and use echolocation, as well as the fact that they can hang upside down. Chiroptera is the order under which bats are classified. The Greek words for hand and wings are chiro and ptera. Their hands have been changed to form a wing membrane, a flap of skin that runs from the body's sides to the lengthened finger bones. The wing membranes have been stretched away from the thumbs. The extended fingers divide the wings into individual divisions. Bats differ from pterosaurs (extinct flying reptiles) in that their wings were folds of skin held by a single extended finger. Bats' wing membranes are supported by their hind legs. A few bat species have a long tail partly enveloped by the tail membrane (interfemoral) or extends between the two legs.

Except for the Arctic and Antarctic, bats can be found all around the globe.

Where can you find them, though?

There are about 1400 kinds of bats worldwide, each distinct in its own way; some are vegetarians, others are bloodsuckers, and a few are diehard carnivores. To capture and identify bats, just like Pokemon in the cartoon, you'll need special gear and gadgets. There are a few fabled bats that can be seen or felt for a brief period of time. Many bats roost in trees, old houses, bridges, temple roofs, and other places.

Before starting for Batting, you should be equipped with a headlamp, torch, gloves, masks, basic medical kit, and if you are handling bats, vaccination is mandatory. If you can manage a bat recorder, then it covers the complete package.

Cave

As I learned more about them, I realised that the first impression is not always the best. Bats are classified as Megabats and Microbats. I was looking for a leaf-nosed bat known as Hipposideros Sp., which is an echolocating microbat.. These bats have a round leaf-like ornament in the nasal region, a specialised region for echolocating.

A cauldron of bats

We uncovered their concealed tunnel after a long search; the cave was quite small, and only one man could crawl in it at a time. There was a large, open area inside with hundreds of bats flying around.

The cave had a higher humidity level than the outside world. Bats were identified with the help of a bat recorder and photographs and looked in every crevice of the cave for evidence of interspecies interaction.

In this cave, there were two different types of bats, H.ater and H.Speoris; identifying the exact species of bats is the most difficult part; you need special training, handling experience, taxonomic knowledge, and many species can also be identified with the help of a bat recorder.

Aside from bats, there are kilos of bat gold, also known as bat guano, inside the cave, which is a good natural fertiliser with a distinct odour. Thousands of cockroaches can also be seen inside the cave, as part of the cave ecosystem's food cycle.

H.Ater

An Intrusion

False vampire Bats Cuddling.

My next goal was to search for the gorgeous and ferocious false vampire bats, an insectivore that can be found in abandoned buildings and temple ruins. These vampire bats do not feed on blood like the true vampire bats of Latin America. In India, we only have two false vampire bats: Megaderma spasma and Megaderma lyra, one of which is an insectivore and the other a carnivore. From there, slowly dispersed to investigate the ruins of an old temple little further from the cave. The ruins could be centuries old, and False vampire bats are currently the only residents of the temple ruins. Journey continued through the forest and hillsides, eventually arriving at the temple ruins. The beauty and cuteness of Megaderma Spasma, also known as the Lesser False Vampire Bat, completely calmed me down, and all thoughts of vampires gone in an instant. These bats have an intriguing hugging behaviour; for some unexplained reason, they enjoy cuddling with their kin. The bats were photogenic, and images from all angles were flawless, demonstrating that beauty is in the eyes.

I was able to find three bats by the end of the day, with many more to go.

The quest continues...