after a rather exhausting day of work, i can look back at an unexpected encounter:

en: lesser horseshoe bat (rhinolophus hipposideros), with pup
de: kleine hufeisennase (rhinolophus hipposideros) mit jungtier

in case you can’t tell which is which: the pair of pointed shapes in the lower right is the mother’s ears. its baby is clinging on tightly and makes up the left half of the furry ball.
like all young microbat babies, it’s hanging with its head up at first. later on, the preferred position will be head down.

this summer, i’m working in a project to support certain species of bat indirectly by aiding their respective habitats. although i didn’t expect to see one of the nursery roosts themselves, i did today. the number of bats in this colony is rising, and a high percentage of the females (such as the one in the photo) are currently raising their young.
it was clearly the highlight of the day.

i’ve prepared a few photos of a bat skeleton from last summer.
it’s a preparation of a greater mouse-eared bat (myotis myotis, grosses mausohr), that i received for a bat presentation. it had been used for demonstration purposes for a long time, so the ribcage is damaged.

i think it’s fascinating to actually "trace back" their evolution and see how over time, the fingers were prolonged, connected with skin (similar to the webbed toes of a duck) and made into wings.
the photos also show that these little creatures adhere to the basic "blueprint" of all mammals.
 

[view photos: bat skeleton]

the title is a verbatim translation of "microchiroptera" - the suborder of microbats.

i’ve been a host to three microbats last week - two of them are here:

two particoloured bats (vespertilio murinus, zweifarbfledermaus)

related in terms of the species: albuin around the world

 

june 8-10 was the weekend of this year’s biodiversity day (geo tag der artenvielfalt) in the ötztal (ötz valley), austria.
our accommodation was the university center obergurgl (universitätszentrum obergurgl) [G], close to the valley’s end. driving through sölden on my way up brought back some precious childhood memories - when i was young, the extended family went there for hiking holidays, several times...

at the event, there were lots of familiar faces that i don’t get to see very often - batman toni with his wife vera and son matthaeus, alice, bernadette, barbara, erich, andi & tom from blattform, insect-expert timo, ...

day one (the day before biodiversity day) included a geological excursion, and the bat & insect nights at lake piburg (piburger see) [G]. we even caught a brown long-eared bat (plecotus auritus), which hadn’t been documented for the region before!

update: the official biodiversity day (with all the daytime surveys) took place on saturday, june 9th.
i spent the day with barbara, erich, andi and tom, botanizing our way (their way, really ;-)) through the vegetation. there even was a sensational discovery: tom found the black spleenwort (asplenium adiantum-nigrum) - the first verification of this species for all of north tirol.

[view photos: the day before biodiversity day]
[view photos: biodiversity day 2007]

bats have just made it into the headlines again:

the bat with the incredibly long tongue
"a rare south american bat, anoura fistulata, turns out to have a spectacularly long tongue. at up to 150% the length of its body, it is proportionally the longest of any mammal."
>> new scientist article (en) with photos
>> spiegel online (de) with high-res photos and a video

(first heard about it here.)
 

magnetic field puts bats on track
"scientists believe big brown bats, eptesicus fuscus, rely on the earth’s magnetic field to keep their bearings as they swoop the night sky. the team, writing in nature, said the finding added to "the impressive array" of sensory abilities that the creatures use to steer in the dark."
>> bbc news (en)
>> pressetext.at (de)

the convention on migratory species (part of the united nations environment programme) has released a publication on the topic of "migratory species and climate change", which features one of my photos of kuhl’s pipistrelle (pipistrellus kuhlii):

they also have a pdf-version, located here.

in the recently-published book "hibernation" by clive roots, one of my bat-photos was used to illustrate the size of the smallest hibernating mammal: