A Eumops by any other anem- howlers and prehensile-tailed porcupines (oh my)!!

Busy busy busy! 

We've been busy processing lots of great bats here.  Last night was a bit of a mess with a massive storm that rained us all out and forced us to close nets down.  Winds were strong enough to rip down branches - some of which almost hit several people!   Despite this we did catch some bats (pre-rain).

Also- this morning a big surprise was that two big bats were knocked down from a nearby palm tree and found by workers here where we are staying.  We thought these guys were Mollosida rufus but it turns out they were Eumops sp.!  Pretty exciting!

In other news- howler monkeys have decided that they like being closer to our cabins! 

Tonight an exciting discovery came in the form of a NEOTROPICAL porqupine!

Sorry for the brief blog but I have to hit the hay to get up and check a harp trap in the am... photos to be uploaded soon/next!

World War II's Other Secret Weapon- BAT BOMB

Believe it or not but during World War II plans were made and nearly successfully executed to attach tiny bombs onto bats. These bats would do what bats do- find nice areas to roost inside homes, with a catch, they had a bomb with them wherever they decided to call home. Because homes in Japan were made of wood and paper the idea was that bombs would destroy houses that were common throughout Japan.

Plans for what became called Project X-Ray was hatched by Donald Griffin, a Harvard scientist and famous bat researcher and a very young Jack Couffer among others.

An excellent and often funny book on the topic titled Bat Bomb by Jack Couffer tells the whole story. A famous bat named 'Flamethrower' is also discussed in the book. Flamethrower was a Mastiff bat (Eumops perotis) which is the largest bat that occurs in the US, weighing around 60 grams (~2 oz). Because the bombs that were designed for bats to carry needed to be small and light-weight Flamethrower who was tame was used as a model for various prototypes. The problem however was that Flamethrower as a Mastiff bat was much larger than the bats that were going to be used for Project X-Ray! Needless to say the project had so many problems (including unplanned bat-initiated explosions!) that it never went into action.