You knew it was coming...

As I've discussed before, I hope to pursue carnivore conservation and ecology in my grad studies/future career. Due to the field research opportunities I've had during my undergrad years, though, I have developed a strong love for bats. I think they are pretty damn cool, as a matter of fact. I don't think I will end up doing bat research "when I grow up," but they are a great hobby, truly incredible animals.

Of course, whenever I go anywhere I have to bring back pictures of the local bats; long-time readers should take that for granted by now. ;) I had high hopes for my batting prospects when I went to Belize--the name of the research station was Las Cuevas, "the caves." None of the research groups there at the time were studying bats, so I didn't get the chance to do any netting. The only thing I would change about the entire trip would be to have some mist nets (yes, I'd use my one wish to get some nets instead of erasing that nasty bacterial infection, that's how cool tropical bats are!). If wishes were horses . . . or horseshoe bats, for that matter . . .

The good news, though, is that I still managed to get some good chiropteran sightings. We did some exploring in the largest cave and discovered some roosting Hairy-legged myotis (Myotis keaysi). I don't think the bats were quite as thrilled as I was when we stumbled upon them, but they struck some good poses nonetheless (sorry for the picture quality, these were taken while balancing on slippery rocks in a pitch-black cave, but the nightshot did at least a decent job):


I will have more Belizean wildlife pictures periodically, but the bats had to be one of the first to be get the spotlight!