Mass rescue of baby fruit bats

December 8, 2014 • 2:42 pm

I’m this close to declaring bats Honorary Cats™ along with foxes and owls, for I find these flying mammals ineffably attractive. And here are some baby fruit bats (“flying foxes”, “megabats” or, biologically, Megachiroptera) that, according to ZooBorns, were orphaned in Australia when a heat wave killed their mothers:

Entire colonies of Gray-headed Flying Foxes and Black Flying Foxes have been wiped out due to the extremely high temperatures.  Often, when the mothers die, their babies are still attached to their teats.  Without immediate rescue, these babies will face the same fate as their mothers.

When the baby Bats enter rehabilitation, rescuers’ first jobs are to help the babies feel secure and to feed them.  The rubber nipples tucked into the babies’ mouths help them feel as if they are still attached to their mothers’ teats.  When the babies are wrapped in tiny blankets (causing the babies to resemble little Bat burritos), they feel safe in their temporary home.  A little affection from the rescuers helps too.

There are some nice pictures on the page, but I like this video showing the rehabilitation. They’re making baby bat burritos! Note that the bats make a lot of noise: most megachiroptera have lost the ability to echolocate because they don’t catch flying prey, and this might explain the vocalizations of these infants.

52 thoughts on “Mass rescue of baby fruit bats”

  1. So adorable!

    I wonder what “extreme heat event” means – fire? Really hot weather?

    1. Really hot weather. In QSLD it has been crazy hot and humid – in the 40s C and I was there when it was humid and in the 30s and that sweaty so 40s would be very dangerous.

  2. The little rascals are so cute. I was impressed with the adult ones I saw at Disney’s Animal Kingdom and, ever since, have been keenly interested in them.

    1. The little rascals are so cute.

      I can cure that.
      Fruit bats (various species) are likely natural hosts for Ebola virus, that weird horsey virus that has killed a number of Australians, and some really lovely other viruses.

        1. In an @Ant and Shermer moment of Woo, I am watching Family Guy S11/Ep23, with the scene of a “adorable little doggy-woggy” being … well, you can guess.
          What are the odds against that then? (Obviously not huge.)

          1. I have no idea what you just wrote, but I will say that I live in 100 year old log house, and have had many a bat come in through the chimney and fly around whilst I am sleeping at night.

            I have always found them to be utterly adorable, but when rescuing them from my house I always take the utmost in precautions to prevent mishaps since I do appreciate that they can be cute yet deadly:P

            My kitty is an Abyssinian, and she really does look like a flying fox without the flying. Same colouring, big ears, the whole shebang.

            I’m a sucker for very large ears, what can I say.

          3. In another thread, “@Ant” had commented on a coincidence between his reading of a message and an event in his outside world ; similarly while reading your comment on adorableness, I was watching (with one eye and one ear) a cartoon with some characters reacting to extreme adorableness in animals.
            I don’t have any problems with bats – in my caving club and British caving in general we go to considerable lengths to avoid disturbing bat roosts and habitats. Regardless of their adorability.

  3. I too love bats. When I was in Cairns, I spent a lot of time photographing them up in the trees around my hotel then watching them from the balcony as they came out at night.

    I follow a site on Facebook called Batzilla the Bat and it appears to be a rescue organization that looks after the bats. The high temperatures have been killing the adults in large numbers. It is very sad.

  8. They are so cute – I’ve always wondered why so many people don’t seem to like them.

    1. One reason is that they are a rabies vector. Per the public health people, if there’s any possibility that someone has been bitten by a bat, rabies shots are mandatory. That’s one reason I don’t like bats.

      3. Oh yes, I should have remembered rabies in my list above. The last wild-caught British rabies case was a registered bat handler who was carrying out a census and got bitten while handling … a “Daubenton’s Bat“?

  9. I lived for a while in a caravan in NSW (with ocean views) near a huge fig tree. I used to go to sleep each night to the sound of them squarking and fighting over the fruit. During the day I’d see them hanging in the trees, covering their heads with their wings and snoozing.

    They are such sensible little fellows.

    I held one once too, who was being rehabilitated. They are very much like cats — like nocturnal winged cats…

    I know (having read WEIT) why there are so many marsupials in Australia, but why are so many of the animals so incredibly cute*.

    (*Either that or horrifyingly deadly. No gray areas.)

  10. As long as they don’t transform into Bela Lugosi, I’m okay with bats. The ones that consume insects can eat 1000 mosquitoes in an hour and I hate mosquitoes.

    2. Yes, and it is a worry. On another note there is a horrid disease that is decimating starfish off of California. It is now known to likely be a virus.

  12. Bats are awesome and in desperate need of more love and respect. Beautiful animals and a vital part of the ecosystem, including parts we really care about — some are critical pollinators and others voracious mosquitovores. Cities really need to divert funds away from insecticide fogging operations and towards establishing bat colonies.

    I mean, the guys turn mosquitoes and other insect pests into the world’s best plant fertilizer — and they do so whilst being unbearably cute. What more could you possibly ask for?

    b&

    1. If you roadtrip to Tucson next summer, you can see hundreds of Mexican freetails swarm out from under the Broadway/Pantano bridge at sunset. It’s very impressive.
      In July we discovered that two of our long-untrimmed neighborhood palm trees (native Washingtonia filifera) have bat colonies that roost in the dried fronds. At sunset, all the bats drop at once and fly off. Another reason not to trim palm trees!

      2. When I was a student, there was a bat habitat constructed near Lake Alice on the campus of the University of Florida. It’s not a particularly large structure, but at sunset the bats would pour out like clowns out of a tiny car at the circus.

  14. As far as I am concerned, bats are flying kitties. I have always found them to be totes adorbs

    1. Unfortunately, according to the Germans, they are already flying mice. “Fledermaus”, or something like that.
      Which might make them rather conflicted if they also became honorary cats. At least most of them don’t have much of a tail to chase.

  15. I have often wondered what it would be like to have one as a pet. I had the privilege to hold an adult one back in the 90’s – it clung to my chest and behaved much like a puppy, seeking out tickles and trying to lick my face.

  16. Yes, they are cute, but pack a nasty bite, and there is the rabies issue already mentioned. And it is really unpleasant for anyone who happens to live near a colony – the noise and the smell can be awful. They make a beautiful sight though, when they head off to feed in the early evening.

    1. A bat with rabies will be very abnormal in behavior. The normal ones (flying, roosting, etc.) are ok, and not to be feared.
      I am not sure if they are any more at risk for rabies than skunks or other animals.

  17. These ‘bats’ are flying foxes. I live near a large colony of these creatures which leave their daytime roost at the end of twilight to do their essential work of pollinating our rainforest trees (in far northern NSW, Australia). Seeing hundreds of flying foxes silhoutted against an orange sunset is amazing.
    3000 flying foxes died – in one day – in a town just south of where I live and our colony only survive that >40degree day because our local volunteer firebrigade hosed them down.
    There are now so many orphans along Australia’s eastern seabord that wildlife carers just can’t cope.
    Unfortunately these animals also carry and can spread a disease that kills horses and humans so there’ve been calls for them to be destroyed or moved on.
    As usual, though, humans contribute considerably to the problem by destroying flying fox habitat, planting fruit trees that attract them in large numbers and by landowners are are slack in keeping their paddocks clean, They also agisting horses in paddocks with fruit trees where the flying fox droppings can taint the grass horses feed on.
    We cause the problem then want to fix it by killing!

  18. I wonder if the bats will become habituated to humans by being handled by humans? Will the bats be more likely to approach humans when they are older?

    I know they aren’t like birds, they don’t imprint, but some animals do become habituated to humans after contact, especially when fed.

    How long have these bat rescue places been operating?

  19. Too cute for words!

    For a few years we had a bat colony in our chimney. One evening I counted 65 flying out. I guess that finally brought us to our senses; we waited till they migrated that fall, then bat-proofed the chimney. I miss them, plus we have noticeably more mosquitos now.

    1. You can put bat houses out. I’ve done so but no one inhabits them because they have nice tall trees nearby. I hear them during the summer getting insects right over my head. You can just see their dark forms in the night; I wish I could take their pictures but small bats darting about in the dark is not an easy picture to take!

      1. I do have one–empty–bat house. I was hoping “my” colony would move to one of the hollow trees nearby, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

        When we had the colony, I loved to watch them swooping around the “trouble light” at night, going after all the bugs attracted to it. Now they’re sometimes there but in much lower numbers.

        Having frequently been out at dusk birding, I have seen bats in almost every habitat around here; it is surprising how ubiquitous they are.

  22. Fantastic shot at 0:34 where you can really see the comparative anatomy of the wing as a long-fingered webbed hand.

      1. I imagine most of us were already well aware of that; I know I was. It does not hamper my affection and enthusiasm for bats, though; our only truly flying mammal!

        Remember that (last I heard) their presumed method of infecting humans with Ebola was by the latter eating their corpses.

  24. Sorry I can’t … I can’t… look at that ghost hands… a Scorpio can love bats eagerly…. not me, I’m a homo being…

  25. Great to see so many people care. I’m from Sydney Wildlife- a volunteer group in Sydney that rescues Native animals, including flying foxes and microbats. At the moment we have have a lot of bats in care from the heat stress event north of Sydney. They’ve been transferred down, because there are too many bats needing care for the local groups to cope.
    If you’d like to take action to help the baby flying foxes, you might consider donations to our Global a Giving Appeal (“help baby bats take flight”. Donations are tax deductible in the US.
    Many thanks again for you concern.

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