New species of bat found on Sint Eustatius

On Sint Eustatius, a small island in the Caribbean that is part of the Netherlands, a new species of bat has been discovered by a team of Dutch experts, working together with Americans.

Since the first thing bats do when they wake up is drink water, and there’s very little fresh water on the island, the bats drink from swimming pools, which is where they are caught.

Along with the velvety free-tailed bat (Molossus molossus), the Jamaican fruit bat (Artibeus jamaicensis), the lesser Antillian fruitbat (Brachyphylla cavernarum) and the rare treebat (Ardops nichollsi), the experts stumbled upon a small, nectar-eating bat with a long tongue that takes over the task of the humming bird at night.

Feel free to read a 28-page report in English [PDF] published this month on the matter, if that’s your thing.

(Link and photo: naturetoday.com)

This entry was posted on Friday, March 30th, 2018 at 8:59 am and is filed under Animals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Tags: bats, Sint Eustatius