Nocturnal Creatures (Part II: Bats)

My home state of New Jersey (and its neighboring states) proudly boasts nine species of bats; six of these can be found within its borders year-round, while the other three are only with us during the warmer months of the year.

Costa Rica on the other hand has an astounding diversity of bats; to date, the list consists of 111 species!  This is more than all other Costa Rican mammal species combined, and is more than twice the number of bat species found in all of North America -- not bad for a country with less area than Lake Michigan!

Lesser Sac-winged Bats (Saccopteryx leptura) in a tree cavity

Our efforts to study neotropical owls (see Nocturnal Creatures Part I) have provided us with the exciting opportunity to get to know some of the many bat species on the eastern Nicoya Peninsula.  Whether we like it or not, setting up nets at night in the tropics inevitably results in encounters with bats.  Luckily, we like that just fine.  Some of the bat species we have captured alongside the owls we are studying have been truly spectacular; indeed, some of them are nearly as large as the owls themselves!

The Greater Spear-nosed Bat (Phyllostomus hastatus),
 the second-largest bat in Costa Rica

When we were on the first net check of our very first night of owl-netting, we approached a net containing one owl and two Greater Spear-nosed Bats (Phyllostomus hastatus, pictured above and below).  These bats are so large that, in the dim light cast by our headlamps on our approach, we thought they were owls!  The two bats had wingspans of sixteen and seventeen inches, just a few inches shy of the wingspan of the Pacific Screech-Owl that had been captured alongside them.

Greater Spear-nosed Bat (Phyllostomus hastatus)

On the opposite end of the size spectrum we have the Black Myotis (Myotis nigricans), which is one of several equally tiny Costa Rican bats in the genera Myotis and Rhogeesa.  The M. nigricans we encountered just a few days before Christmas weighed just 3.5 grams, about the same weight as a Ruby-throated Hummingbird!

The tiny Black Myotis (Myotis nigricans)

With many outwardly similar-looking genera and species, identification of tropical bats can be a meticulous process.  Distinctions between species are often as subtle as differences in the basal coloration of individual hairs or in the arrangement of teeth.  Since this is the first year we have set up nets after dark, it has been a fun challenge to keep up with the sudden influx of unfamiliar bats that need identifying.

The characteristic "gap" (actually filled by two tiny premolars)
between the molars and canines of species in the genus Myotis

Other notable mentions include the Jamaican Fruit Bat (Artibeus jameicensis), the most commonly encountered bat at Finca Pura Vida; the Common Long-tongued Bat (Glossophaga soricina), which we believe to be at least one of the species that visits the hummingbird feeders at night to sip nectar; and the Pale Spear-nosed Bat (Phyllostomus discolor), the second-largest bat we've captured at the Finca.

The Jamaican Fruit Bat (Artibeus jameicensis)

The handsome (?) face of a Pale Spear-nosed Bat (Phyllostomus discolor)

The nine bat species we have netted so far at Finca Pura Vida are only a fraction of those that occur in the area: the nearby Reserva Natural Absoluta Cabo Blanco -- where one of our bird banding stations is located -- has a list of 41 bat species that have been observed there, and that list continues to grow.  Affiliates of the Cabo Blanco Reserve recently conducted a bat survey, identifying bats both in-hand (using mist nets to capture them) and by recordings of their sonar (which, not unlike bird songs, can be diagnostic of particular species).  During this survey they captured a Silver-tipped Myotis (Myotis albescens) -- a species never before recorded in the reserve -- in addition to twenty other species which were already on the Reserve's official mammal list.

We are thrilled to have the opportunity to become more familiar with the nocturnal fauna of the neotropics, most of which are seldom seen by diurnal animals like Homo sapiens.  The demands placed upon these flying nocturnal creatures have driven the evolution of adaptations that render them utterly bizarre and endlessly fascinating, and the chance to see them up-close is just plain cool.