Lots of Fruit Bats
I came across a bat colony yesterday on the way back from school.
I'm not sure what variety these are, fruit bats not being something I've looked into, but this is just a very small amount of the large colony on Days Rd, Wight''s Mountain.
View all photos taken: Thursday, 23rd October 2008, This photo: 9:11am
they are grey-headed fruit bats... no doubt bristling with lyssa-virus.
Luckily for me, they were afraid of the cameraman and flew off if I got too close ;-)
black fruit bats, another species, are often found among grey-headed colonies. the colonies seem to live in close association. could be what yu saw. there is really no danger unless yu start handling them.
The Central Scrutiniser Pro User says:
they are grey-headed fruit bats... no doubt bristling with lyssa-virus.
Posted 8 hours ago. ( permalink )
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Shirley your are joking? Infection rates in wild bats vary from 1 - 7% from my understanding. That is hardly bristling. Studies which show higher rates are from skewed pools, where the animals have been submitted for testing specifically because they are suspected of having Australian Bat Lyssavirus because of they have neuro signs or have bitten someone.
Grey-headed flying-foxes and Black Headed Flying-foxes often share camp in the area where there range overlaps. On the whole you will find the Blacks roost higher and are more dominant. There are also camps on the east coast where you will also sometimes find Little Reds as well.
Grey-headed flying-foxes are listed as vulnerable as a state and federal level as they are endemic to Australia and their numbers are crashing.
Pythons tend to eat flying-foxes rather than elapids, even so, it's worth being careful around long grass!
cheers
storm
As for the snakes, I was worried for myself rather than the bats :)
Greg's with the DPI, I'm sure he's well aware of the infection rates for bats.
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Ah, there you go, I find it difficult to tell when people are joking sometimes...
There is a great picture of a python eating a FF in Wilson and Swan.
Anyhoo, time to go and feed the ff pup in the animal room.
cheers
storm
i was being flippant with the use of the word "bristling" - but the i have seen figures on incidence of lyssa virus among the different species and some are much higher than 7%.
... will take a look when i am back at work.
Nice catch!
i was being flippant with the use of the word "bristling" - but the i have seen figures on incidence of lyssa virus among the different species and some are much higher than 7%.
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Ah, sorry. I spent far too much time trying to convince people that neither snakes nor bats are as dangerous as they might believe and if they just leave both ALONE everything will be fine! It's given me a serious blind spot in that area. :-)
The microbat, Yellow-bellied Sheath-tail, has some amazing infection rate. The first woman who died, the rehabber, turned out her ABL infection came from a YBST.
Also I just read that in Dave Pinson's bat care manual, Little Red FF have a higher infection rate than GHFF.
This is recent review for NSW Health of various surveillance and practise papers:
www.publish.csiro.au/?act=view_file&file_id=NB07050.pdf
cheers
storm