Neighbors’ remains: Flat Bat
A wee warning: This is a post containing pictures of a largely decomposed bat I found on my morning walk. You may wish to skip it. On the other hand, it’s nearly Halloween, so a highly appropriate post for the season. And I found it interesting to look at, obviously. And no, it didn’t smell. Not that I stuck my nose right into it.
This is its ventral surface: you can still see remnants of the fur from its stomach. I like the way you can see the bones of the tail, hind legs, and wing extenders – I hesitate to call them fingers, but those are the analogous bones in us.
This is the back of the bat, and you can see its ribs and scapulae. Its face wasn’t very visible at this stage; the whole animal was strangely flat, about a quarter-inch thick, and I couldn’t see any of those distinctive nose wrinkles or curiously-shaped ears some bat species are famous for.
To give an idea of its size, I put my index finger nearby. It’s about five inches long:
Ew, I hear you cry, enough! OK, dead bats aren’t everyone’s idea of a great blog post. But I put it in because I like bats; this is partially because I so distinctly DISlike mosquitoes, and bats eat them and other bugs at a furious pace. But it’s also nice to go walking around the athletic fields at night and see them whizzing around the lamps. They are amazing aeronauts, and you can see the light shining through their wings. They are an auspicious symbol in Chinese painting. And they leave people strictly alone.
Bats of Singapore, I salute you!