The Bat Jungle- Monteverde

 Yesterday morning I was able to go back to the farmers' market with my family to buy the food for the week.  I was so excited because they once again had my rambutan and they had yellow ones which are so much sweeter and they also had mangostein!  This week I also went up the hill to a hydroponic greenhouse that grows beautiful lettuce, basic, tomatoes, and so much more.  It was amazing to see this large scale operation that is open to the public to come up and pick their own vegetables.

 In the afternoon I was able to go to The Bat Jungle which is only a 5 minute walk from my house.  The bats they have here are on an opposite cycle than they are supposed to be.  So during the day when people are there it is like night time for them when they are active flying around and feeding.  

 This was one of the many signs they had that told about bats.  I was very interested to learn that just like humans bats have midwives that help deliver the baby (1 per year) as well have baby sitters so the mother can go out and feed.  One surprising fact to me was that bats are not blind but do in fact have black and white vision and they can also live up to 44 years depending on the species.  In Costa Rica there are over 116 species of bats and 65 of those species can be found in Monteverde.  Across the world there are over 1,200 different species.   Here at the bat jungle they have 8 species and have 111 bats in their exhibit.

 This is a skeleton of a giant Flying Fox bat and this isn't even as large as they can get.  Bats are closely related to monkeys due to their skeletal structure make up.  

 Here is a representation of how big our ears would have to be to be proportional to the bats.  Unlike humans who only have 9 different ways to talk to each other bats have over 95 different ways to communicate and rely mostly on echo location to find  the food as well as to find their homes.

 Here you can see a representation of three different types of bats.  The closest is an insectivore bat followed by fruit eating and then vampire bat.  There are 3 vampire bat species in the world.  Other bats eat fruit, blood, insects, meat, and nectar.  Their largest predator is owls sadly followed by the house cat.   I was also surprised to learn that they also are eaten by bat falcons, snakes, monkeys and humans in some parts of the world.  They had three scales that you could stand on that told you three interesting facts.  I learned that if I was a bat of my size and weight in order to survive EVERY NIGHT I would have to eat... 200 liters of nectar, 540 whole bananas, or 60 buckets of insects.  So I'm glad I am not a bat!

 The other half of the tour was done in the room where you could actually see the bats.  The room was very dark and the guide used a flash light to shine on the bats so we could see them through the large windows.  I was able to get there at feeding time so we got to see the guide go in and put the fresh fruit down for the bats and they had fresh mangoes, bananas, and watermelon.  Here you can see the bat eating fresh watermelon as he is hanging upside down.  All and all I had a great tour there and learned a lot more about bats and now have a greater appreciation for their importance here on earth. 

This was the view from the house last night of the beautiful sunset, so I can't wait to see what tonight looks like!