| You are currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and that there are some features you can't use or read. We are an active community of worldwide senior members participating in chat, politics, travel, health, blogging, graphics, computer issues & help, book club, literature & poetry, finance discussions, recipe exchange and much more. Also, as a member you will be able to access member only sections, many features, send personal messages, make new friends, etc. Registration is simple, fast and completely free. Why not register today and become a part of the group. Registration button at the very top left of the page. Thank you for stopping by. Join our community! In case of difficulty, email worldwideseniors.org@gmail.com. If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features: |
| Bat breeding breakthrough | |
|---|---|
| Topic Started: Feb 8 2014, 10:43 AM (148 Views) | |
| Kahu | Feb 8 2014, 10:43 AM Post #1 |
|
Bat breeding breakthrough Posted Image BAT FAN: One of the tiny short-tailed bats, or pekapeka, which were born in mid-November. Auckland Zoo has successfully bred and reared lesser short-tailed bat twins, the first time the threatened New Zealand species has been bred and hand-reared in a zoo. The tiny short-tailed bats, or pekapeka, a male and a female born in mid-November weighing just 4 grams, are now a healthy adult weight of about 14 grams. Source Link Batty about bats Short-tailed bats are amazing because instead of heading to the sky to feed on insects like most bats around the world (including the long-tailed bats), they swoop out of their colonies at night, fly DOWN to the ground, fold up their wings, and scrabble around on the forest floor on their elbows, eating nectar, invertebrates and fruit. Bizarre bat behaviour indeed, unless of course you evolved in New Zealand, the land without teeth, without native rodents, and therefore the forest floor provides a veritable smorgasbord of culinary delights. Source Link |
|
|
|
| Darcie | Feb 8 2014, 10:48 AM Post #2 |
|
Skeptic
|
You don't have mice in New Zealand? |
|
|
|
| Kahu | Feb 8 2014, 11:13 AM Post #3 |
|
We do now, they came with people ... but native New Zealand wildlife is unique, it evolved generally without mammals. Bats, birds and marine mammals were the only representatives of mammals. The short tailed bat and some insects took the small mammalian niche here. |
|
|
|
| Trotsky | Feb 8 2014, 12:14 PM Post #4 |
|
Big City Boy
|
Gee, what would endangered species do without man to protect them. (I think I just pierced my cheek.) |
|
|
|
| Dana | Feb 8 2014, 02:13 PM Post #5 |
|
WWS Hummingbird Guru & Wildlife photographer extrordinaire
|
What a cutie ! |
|
|
|
| Kahu | Feb 15 2014, 04:58 PM Post #6 |
|
"Short-tailed bats are the world's most terrestrial bats and represent the bat family's attempt to produce a mouse" [Diamond, 1990] Short-tailed bats are indeed very unusual, unique creatures. Many may regard them as weird. They are undoubtedly a rare oddity, with remarkable bodily features and habits different from other bats. In the prehuman New Zealand ecology, they did the job of mice in a normal mammalian ecology, and developed habits typical of so many of New Zealand's flightless and poor flying birds. Most bats catch their food while in flight, but the short-tailed bat does things differently, spending a lot of time searching and eating off the forest floor. Source Link |
|
|
|
| FuzzyO | Feb 15 2014, 05:02 PM Post #7 |
|
I have an irrational dislike and fear of bats. |
|
|
|
| margaret | Feb 16 2014, 12:19 AM Post #8 |
|
Red Star Member
|
I can't say I have a real fear of anything, some things I tend to stay a few feet away from such as snakes. |
|
|
|
| Kahu | Feb 16 2014, 01:16 AM Post #9 |
|
They're just like a bundle of black spider webs ... with teeth. |
|
|
|
| 1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous) | |
| « Previous Topic · Pets & Wildlife · Next Topic » |