Last time I was at AK, I got some great dragon images. This time the angle of the sun and this Malayan Flying Fox (Pteropus vampyrus) made for a striking photo.
oh and the wings kinda look like leaves with the sun shining thru them. I thought bats hung in caves or under overhangs. shows how much I know
;D My old training in Wildlife Biology coming out with the Latin naming. With less known species like these, using the Latin name sounds impressive. I believe Disney choose this bat and the other bat which is also in the compound because they hang out in trees during the day. Less expensive enclosure then a bat cave. I mean, look at Bruce Wayne's, that one must have cost him millions. BTW, you'll notice the blow outs on the outer wing surfaces. I decided to do the opposite of what one normally does and exposed for the darker body so as to see the detail. The sun bringing out the wing detail was beautiful.
What I never get tired of is seeing all the people who are afraid of bats. My local zoo has a free flight bat area also, and you get plenty of freaked out people there too. Unlike the area in AK though, there's no bypass path. There's one way through the Australia house (despite the fact that the particular bats aren't Australian, they're close, and they're more endangered than the usual Australian bats) and that's through the bat area. I don't mean to be callous about that.. but.. the whole fear of bats thing is such a superstition, it's really something we need to be working out of our culture. The whole point of these things is to see that bats really have no interest in attacking people, thanks to their sonar they're probably better able to avoid you than you are them. And with West Nile virus taking a toll on the Chicago area's bird population we can use every mosquito eater that we can get. They actually do have vampire bats, but rather obviously they're kept in a separate isolated area. Which makes me wonder why the flying fox has vampire in the scientific name. None of the vampire bats do. Although the natural anti-coagulant in their saliva is called draculin. And although even I'll admit that the skeletal looking digit that extends from the wings is a bit on the creepy side.. the faces are sooo cute.
