jakob's Favorites

@mobbini: dieser Weg ist für die Schillerfalter und Eisvögel am interessantesten. Als Köder gehen Hundekot (liegt da rum), stinkender Käse, überreife Bananen, (Frauen-)Urin. Am westlichen Ende des Wegs sollten nächste Woche auch Dukatenfalter fliegen. Unabhängig davon ist der gesamte Wald ein Paradies für Naturliebhaber...

A truly amazing encounter with one of the world's most enigmatic ungulates. When I first saw this Pygmy Hippo, it was resting on the ground a few meters off the trail, covered with sweat droplets. After about an hour of waiting, it got up and slowly walked through the forest. It did not appear to mind my presence.

This is a feral cat (proven wild, FWC says she's part of a 30+ clowder here in Treasure Island.)

A few weeks ago, 3 got eaten by coyotes. They've tried to trap them and have gotten 10 (yeah there were 40). She follows me everywhere, even though I have never fed her. Occasionally I will leave out water.

The best part about it is every morning when I get up, she's waiting by the pool, meowing.

The lizard is fine, once she saw me, she let the lizard go.

I found this bat dead in a parking garage one night, left on the ground where someone had apparently stepped on it and killed it. I've no way to know whether it was discovered on the ground, or was temporarily roosting in the structure and was deliberately dislodged and stomped on.

I took it into the hospital (where I worked at the time) in a bag and, yes, X-Rayed it. Three cheers for the resourceful Radiological Technician who made a good exposure on the first try!

So, as I knew at the time (I had already done a lot of work with bats with the National Speleological Society), this turned out to be an adult Mexican Free-tailed Bat, very common on the campus of the University of Florida (they roosted in large numbers in several buildings on campus at that time).

The X-Ray film shows evidence of multiple traumas: L.(left) humeral and ulnar fractures, a proximal R. femur fx., multiple L. rib and scapular fx's, and most visibly, a displaced compound spiral fracture of the R. humerus. The skull is, well, pretty dis-integrated one might say. [I'd love to show this again to a proper Radiologist to find out what else might be deduced.]

Interestingly, and especially for identification purposes, one can just barely make out, even in this poor copy, the faint ghost of a shadow of the very distinctive broad overhead ears, the nose, and most importantly, the webbing of skin that extends only halfway down the tail - the defining feature of this family of bats, the Molossidae, commonly known as "free-tail" bats. Molossids have a distinctive musky smell that I am also very familiar with, but that doesn't register on X-Rays of course.

I still have the original X-Ray film, but the image is badly deteriorating. I can however make measurements from it. X-Rays like this are contact prints, so are close to life size; but are generally slightly larger than the subject because of the projection geometry of the source, subject, and film. The X-Ray machine was close, perhaps only 2/3 of a meter away. Be that as it may, I measure the forearm length, directly on the film, to be 43mm., so this is a large individual, slightly magnified on film.

So - a free-tailed bat with a forearm length around, say, ~40-41mm., in Gainesville, Florida.
Easy to identify, even from an X-Ray!

Curiously, while this is the same species that, out West, roosts colonially in caves by the milions, in Florida it roosts mostly in man-made structures. This seems to be because Florida limestone caves, while numerous, tend toward the small and torturous - too hazerdous for this high speed flyer to negotiate. Large colonies of bats in north Florida caves I believe are mostly made up of the slower flying and more maneuverable Myotis austroriparious, the Southestern (mouse-eared) Bat.