When watching some of the videos I have collected so far
this summer, it became obvious that identifying the specific species of the
bats feeding on the agaves is no easy task. The videos are really cool to
watch, but the resolution is not high enough to see the distinguishing features
(e.g. tail membrane size/shape, length of nose, etc.) of the species well. (For
a more complete description of how to identify the different species, see my
previous blog post: “The Many Faces of Agave Visitors”). So, I figured out how to take zoomed,
slow motion video clips while monitoring at night! I’m super excited about the
results. The videos are a tad dark, since slow motion recording requires a lot
more light than normal recording, but you can clearly see the bats and all
their features! For example, you can see how the back legs look like a “V”,
which means that the tail membrane is relatively small. This means the bat is
not a Mexican long-tongued bat (Choeronycteris mexicana), which has a large
tail membrane. These videos have allowed me to definitively confirm that they
are Leptonycteris. Anecdotal evidence says that Mexican long-nosed bats
(Leptonycteris nivalis) make a “whooshing” sound when flying, while Lesser
long-nosed bats (Leptonycteris yerbabuenae) don’t. Since I did hear “whooshing”
while the bats were flying around in the field, I’m pretty darn sure they’re
Mexican long-nosed bats, the target species for my project. This is definitely
an exciting finding! I hope you enjoy the videos below!
You can see in this video, and the one below, how the bat briefly holds
onto the flowers as it quickly sticks its head in and laps up the nectar.
A very brief visit!
Notice the tongue sticking out as the bat flies away. The batis busy licking up that nectar!
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