A Short Tailed Bat Came to Visit

Bats

On Wednesday the 4^th of February 2015 we had a visit from Warren, from the Department of Conservation. Warren came along to Te Anau School to talk to us and show us the “Long Tailed Bat” and the “Short Tailed Bat.”

These are the things we found out…

Doc works in the Eglinton Valley and Iris Burn Valley monitoring bats and their population.

Traps are put in trees or in open areas where the bats fly.  The traps are not to hurt the bats but to monitor the population with tracking devices.

There are two types of traps they use one is a fragile net and one is big with pockets. The outsides of the pockets are made from plastic so the bats cannot climb out but the inside has a sleeve made of cotton.  The bats climb up the cotton and get trapped.  The Short Tailed Bat does not like the trap and has a tantrum however the Long Tailed Bat just goes with the flow.

Bats cannot see they use echolocation to form a picture in their head so they know where they are and can find food.  You can tell how old a bat is by their wings.  If the bat is real young you can often see through their wing with a light and if they are older you can see a diamond on their fingers.  Bats usually live in trees that have been hollowed out these are called their roost where they sleep and leave their juveniles when feeding.  The NZ bat fly lives alongside the Short Tailed Bat and it eat their waste.  The bats are New Zealand’s only land mammals that are native.  Both of the bats and the flies are very rare and endangered.

Warren gave us lots of amazing information about the bats in the Eglinton Valley and Iris Burn Valley however the funniest was the flies eating the waste products of the bats.

Our Interesting Information by Room 6 Te Anau School