Cari amici, visto che siamo vicini alla festa di Halloween, quest’anno in piena pandemia, ho pensato di parlarvi di un mammifero molto controverso: il pipistrello. I pipistrelli hanno una brutta reputazione, da sempre legati al mondo delle ombre e oggi, ancora al centro dell’attenzione, perchè i pipistrelli sembrano essere degli involontari incubatori di virus potenzialmente letali. Nella foresta filippina, nelle piante di bambù, vive un pipistrello piccolissimo, talmente piccolo che sta nel palmo di una mano.
The Philippines is home to an amazing 56 species of bats, even after a number of types have already become extinct.
The Philippines also holds three world records relating to bats: The largest gathering of Fruit Bats (more than two million) in the Montford bat caves in Samal; the world’s largest bats, the Golden Crown Flying Fox; and the smallest bat, the Bamboo Bat.
The Bamboo Bat or Lesser Bamboo Bat (Tylonycteris pachypus) is a species of vesper bat in the Vespertionidae family. This species lives in the hollow of Giant Bamboo shoots, roosts in the slit bored into the shoots of bamboo by leaf beetle larvae. The entrance slit to such cavities is too restrictive for mist predators, such as snaked, but the flattened head of the bamboo bat allows it to enter.
The Bamboo Bat weighing only 1/20th of an ounce, the bat is the size of a large bee when it is born and is one of the smallest mammals on earth. Gestation 12 to 13 weeks. Usually two young; female carries young for first couple days, then leaves them behind in bamboo chamber. The young are weaned and become independent at six to seven weeks.
