National Geographic

encountered one in 2009. “They’re very rare,and I knew nothing about them,” he said as wehiked along a trail. Once he trapped a spectralin a net while doing a bat survey. “I smelled itbefore I saw it—I thought something had died inour net. I was completely confounded, withoutwords, when I saw this giant creature chewinghis way out of our net. I was so surprised and abit scared because of its size.” After removingthe bat from the net, Vleut put on two pairs ofleather gloves to handle it.Fascinated, Vleut read everything he couldfind about the bats—which was very little—anddiscovered that no one had looked into theirecology. He contacted Medellín, and the twolaunched their study. “Right now we’re tryingto determine how many of these bats can live inan area,” Vleut said. “We give rewards to peoplewho find their roosts and tell us.”That was how they’d located several roosts.They found another one after netting a spectralbat and attaching a transmitter to its back. Ourgroup followed the signal to a hollow tree, whereMedellín and Vleut hoped to be able to observespectral bats at home. The scientists attacheda GoPro camera to a cable. Vleut fixed a sethis hotel room and let them hunt for mice hereleased. He scattered leaves for the rodents torustle through, sounds the bats quickly detectedas they rotated their giant ears like satellitedishes to target their prey. “The bats flew insidea cage and hung from its wire sides or a branch,”Medellín said, “and just stayed there, perfectlystill. But as soon as they heard the tiniest soundfrom the mice, they pounced.” The bats wereeasy to train, he added, quickly learning that acertain sound on his cell phone meant they’dsoon have a chance to hunt. Medellín suspectsthat woolly bats in the wild hang out on treetrunks when hunting, listening for the scuttlingfootsteps of rodents or reptiles, or the sound ofanother bat’s wings.ONE DAY WE TREKKED through the rain foresthoping to find spectral bats. Vleut had firstof his students replied. It was the remains of arecent meal, perhaps, lying there like part of adiscarded Halloween costume. The bats con-tinued to glare and chatter at the GoPro, andfinally in what was surely a desperate protectivegesture, one of the adults turned and spread itswings around the pup.“Ohhh,” we said in unison, and then: “Takethe camera out—get it out of there!” Vleut pulledon the cable, and the bats disappeared from thescreen. An animated discussion ensued abouthow the scientists might put an unobtrusivecamera into the tree to get images of the lives ofbats without disturbing them.Undoubtedly these carnivorous bats were ter-rifying to the Maya, just as they must be today tothe animals they hunt. But we saw their softer,vulnerable side when they were huddled intheir roosts or being handled by the scientists.Strange-looking creatures—a winged mix ofmouse and wolf—as gentle and caring of theirown as any other mammal. j``````of ropes and carried the camera to the upper-most part of the trunk, where the hollow opened.He slipped the camera inside and inched itfarther down.For several minutes the computer monitor onthe ground was dark. Then: “We see them! Therethey are! Look, look! Right there!” Three pairs ofeyes shone in the camera’s light, an adult femalewith a juvenile and an adult male. Surprised bythe strange intruder in their home, they wereprotesting. We couldn’t hear their sounds, butthe bats’ faces were contorted, their teeth chat-tering furiously, their long ears vibrating.“They do that when they make the burrrrsound, which tells you to back off,” saidMe dellín, who kept his eyes fixed on the screen.“Now what’s that down there?” he said, lookingpast the bats at what appeared to be the floorof the tree’s interior. “That’s a bat’s wing!” one``````‘I WAS COMPLETELY CONFOUNDED WHEN I SAW THISGIANT BAT CHEWING HIS WAY OUT OF OUR NET. I WASSURPRISED AND A BIT SCARED BECAUSE OF ITS SIZE.’Ivar Vleut, bat researcher``````Virginia Morell is the author of the New YorkTimes best seller Animal Wise: How We KnowAnimals Think and Feel. Anand Varma’s story onhummingbirds appeared in the July 2017 issue.``````MEAT-EATING BATS 85