Bats

Video of Baxter in his new home

Try to imagine what this feels like… someone takes you captive, you don’t know why. You don’t speak their language and you are powerless to escape. You have no idea what they want of you, and you are terrified.

Archived (Wayback Machine): - earth.com article - full study in eLife

Archived (Wayback Machine): - Mongabay article - study cited: webpage or PDF

Bats all have one pup at a time, twins being a rare exception. All bat species are K-selected, meaning parent investment in their young is high. This means the juveniles are usually born more highly-developed, have higher survivorship, and are fewer in number. Humans are another example.

Located less than 20 miles from downtown San Antonio, Texas, Bracken Cave Preserve is the largest bat colony in the world — home to over 20 million Mexican free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis).

Bulvedere is a non-releasable Mexican free-tailed bat. Bulvedere suffered wing-wasting, and while his wing membranes have regrown, the condition left him non-releasable. As you can see by his buns of steel, however, little Bulvedere settled quite nicely into his new life within the non-releasable insects bat colony.

Source

Speaking of fingers, here we are able to see Dori's five fingers! Her thumb is on the bottom of her wing, and the other four fingers are inside of her wing. All bats are part of the order Chiroptera, which roughly translates to "hand wing." This is because their wings are so similar to our hands!

Little Golden-mantled Flying Fox, Sunshine (on the right), is showing off how his species received their common name. Sunshine here sure is little, and he is definitely golden!

Charm is the definition of "just hanging out" today as she is taking in some sunshine!

As two of the oldest ladies at Lubee, Lucy (34+) and Miss Pearl (31) need a few extra calories to keep their weight stable. This is why they receive supplemental feedings of Pediasure, baby food, and juice daily by staff. They are always more than happy to enjoy their smoothies!