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Bat Blitz 2012 was conducted here on the Apalachicola National Forest. (Chuck Hess, Wildlife Biologist)
For three days 90 biologists from state and private and federal
agencies met on the forest to captured bats
and examine their health on the forest.
In the three days we captured 245 bats and we got a baseline study of
how the bats are doing on the forest and they all appear to be healthy.
So we've determined potential bat foraging sites. (Professor Merrill Tawse, University of Ashland, Ohio)
Sites where the bats are going to be out at night going after their food.
Within those sites we pick sites where we can
put in a mist net and that's our main method of capture
for this blitz this year.
And, the bats when they're out there foraging they find their way
by echolocation; sending out sound waves. If it hits something
it bounces back and they hear their own voice.
And, it tells them what objects are in front of them. Well with
a mist net they don't get a lot of echo off of it.
And so they tend to write it off as feedback and they continue to fly
forward and then they get tangled into the
the strings of that mist net.
We're here tonight with a small group of biologists and ecologists trying to (Ecologist Gary Libby, Skybax Ecological Services)
capture bats over a creek. We have a
caught two bats already tonight; a Seminole and a Red Bat.
And, we're hoping to catch a few more.
This is a different species. A relative. This is
an Evening Bat.
Probably because they live in large colonies
they're not as clean and neat as some of our other bats.
The forearm is 39.
And now we are going to take her and put her in a hauling bag for a little while
so we can collect some guano.
With the external morphology (Seminole Bat)
this is actually their foot, this foot that is real small you can see
and their wing is actually a modified hand.
This is the thumb. These are the fingers. Wing membrane
itself, see it's kind of rubbery almost about like a latex glove
or something. It just a thin layer of skin between the
finger bones. And this particular bat,
this is a Seminole Bat and it's heavily furred.
This guys a male.
And a nice, very dark bat. Very thick fur.
You can see the little tiny teeth. Like all of our bats here
they're insectivores. Although, I guess in very southern Florida they're
some fruit eating bats.
These guys are tree roosters, they roost in canopies.
Often they, well actually, the Seminole Bat roosts
in Spanish Moss. So these guys will climb up in a clump of Spanish Moss and roost
during the day and then when they come out at night they drop out
and fly and start foraging.