Saturday, January 21, 2006

The Murderer has been identified

The Murderer is now in custody awaiting execution for his dastardly deeds. It was a momentous struggle to arrest the said criminal and he put up a shocking fight which included scratching and biting and trying to run away several times even from the confines I put him in. it was purely by accident that the serial killer had let himself be trapped and that I came upon him in the midst of a sleep, probably from eating so many of his victims, in fact he was probably far too heavy for takeoff after the last meal he had. Yes I am talking about the Bertie the serial killer Bat. I found him on some screens where I wasn’t sure that the bats would feed but as soon as I found him there I knew it was the bats that have been killing all the moths and discarding all the wings after the meal. Poor little thing was cold as these bats normally get after getting stuck on the screens, not sure why this one was stuck, could be too fat, could be tired, maybe he just wanted to sleep it off eating so much, who knows but one thing is for sure even if they are stuck I have ever only found one desiccated corpse so even if they do get stuck they may sleep it off during the day and then leave again that night but that seems a bit optimistic as they would get far too cold to fly and perhaps the giant toads that crawl about the bottom of the screens wait for the wind to blow off the dead bats and then they eat the bats. All very plausible as these toads could quite easily eat Bertie as he is so small, again he is one of the tiny species here, not sure how many small species there are here but I read there are over 1000 species world wide and there are many here in the Amazon. So I picked him off the screens and he immediately tried to bit me twice actually and the second time his bite was really hard and I was thankful for taking my Rabies vaccination. I slipped him into my pocket as it is pointless trying to release him there in the wind tunnel around all the cooling fans so I left the plant and took him back to my office and placed him into the box that is now becoming the bat home for abandoned bats. I put a soft pair of leather gloves in the box and push them up against one side so that the bat can hang upside down on the edge of the glove and he seemed to be at home and settled down nicely. At lunch he was scrabbling around in the box and I thought he was desperate to escape and so I took him to the tennis courts and let him go, he managed about 50 meters until he alighted on the fence around the court and I went over to him and he was totally exhausted and he let me pick him up without a fight and so I put him back in the box and went to collect some half dead moths that I will feed him with later today when it is getting dark so he can feel more awake and hungry, last time I did this after a few moths the bat looked as though he had enough energy to fly away. Let's hope I can do the same today.
Latest update, poor little thing is having convulsions and he will not last the night. I will give him a good send off tomorrow.

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