#bumblebee bats

I can’t believe that I’ve been SLACKING SO BAD THAT THJS IS EVEN A QUESTION IM SKDJKAJDKS SO MAD AT MYSELF NOW

Of course! How could I resist the ittiest bittiest babies?

Today's Bat: Bumblebee Bat

Environmental Impact: The Bumblebee Bat (aka the Kitti's Hog-Nosed Bat) is small in everything it does. It has a small range, roosting mostly in the Bilauktaung Mountain's limestone caves and hunting in its bamboo forests. They hover to capture insects in flight, and remain in a solitary, torpor-like state the rest of the time to conserve energy. The world's smallest mammals also have one of the world's smallest environmental impacts: their low population size means they have little impact on insect populations. They are on the IUCN Redlist as near-threatened.

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Beauty: While the first thing that hits you about a Bumblebee Bat is their size, don't let this stop you from admiring their other amazing qualities. They have lovely, wideset nostrils. Their short, pointed ears and large wing-t0-body ratio create a unique silhouette. They come in both grey-coated and red-coated variants, for whether you'd prefer your bumblebees in Original or Spicy flavor.

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Power: You can't expect an amazing power score from a creature that weighs two grams. The most interesting thing I found about these guys is that their two distinct populations, Myanmar and Thailand, have distinct calls, with the Thai population using higher-frequencies. I'll keep my eyes peeled to learn more about them!

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Overall: This is another species that's tied to Merlin Tuttle in my mind, as he recalls his adventures in trying to capture photographs of them (like the one above) in his book, The Secret Lives of Bats. He mentions how fear has driven human populations to kill roosting Bumblebee bats (and many other species) despite their largely harmless natures, which was a major factor in what lead me to creating this blog. Thank you for helping me continue to spread love and acceptance of these tiny friends!

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HI SORRY IT'S BEEN A HOT MINUTE SCHOOL IS HARD BUT HERE WE GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Bumblebee Bats/Kitti's Hog-Nosed Bats/Craseonycteris thonglongyais are the world's smallest mammal. Yeah, there's a shrew that might be a tad smaller by dimensions depending on the specimens you are comparing but, listen, Bumblebee Bats are definitely the smallest by weight and also most of the time by size so we're going with the bats for that award title. THEY WEIGH AS MUCH AS A DIME!!!!!!!!!!! INSANE!!!!!! (Official dimensions put the little lads at  29 to 33 mm (1.1 to 1.3 in) in length and 2 g (0.071 oz) in mass.)

Now a lot of people out there will post pictures of bat dolls and claim they're Bumblebee Bats so it's hard to find accurate pictures of them online but here is one to show you HOW INSANELY FREAKING SMALL THEY ARE. LOOK AT THIS PICTURE. LOOK AT YOUR OWN HAND. IMAGINE.

(p.s. handling your imaginary bat barehanded is fine but real bats should be handled with gloves)

Anyway, this bat is native to Thailand and consumes insects and spiders using their handy-dandy super flying skills. Like most bats, they're highly acrobatic. Being this small, they might be mistaken for an insect flying through the night sky which is super convenient if you eat insects because you blend right in. Sneaky.

As you can see in the photo above, these bats have kind of a snubby nose which is why they are more formally known as Kitti's Hog-Nosed Bat. The "Kitti" part of their name and the "thonglongyais" part of their scientific name come from the man who discovered them in 1973, Kitti Thonglongya, a Thai biologist.

As of right now, it is estimated that only about 4,000 individual Bumblebee Bats in the wild which has earned them the title of "Near Threatened" on the IUCN list BUT this bat is facing fast habitat loss due to development and human disturbance so "Near Threatened" is very bad indeed. A lot of biologists insist that this species is facing extinction.

ANYWAY happier quick facts:

They're wings are shaped in a such a way that suggests an ability to hover during flight which is RAD.

They only hunt for 30 minutes at the beginning of the night and 20 minutes right before morning.

The females have 1 baby a year and usually carried the kiddos to work with them and kiddo has to hang on to momma via a vestigial (non-functioning) nipple in her pubic area. Whack.

They hunt near cassava plants are vital to pest control.

Honestly, I though the same thing until I started studying bats a couple years ago! That's the neat thing about bats, they have such a variable size range! The biggest bats have a wingspan of 6 feet, and the smallest are, well, let me show you so you have a frame of reference:

Bumblebee Bats: The Smallest Mammals on the Planet

Bumblebee bats (Craseonycteris.thonglongyai or AKA Kitti’s hog-nosed bats) are found in limestone caves in the forests of Thailand, Myanmar and Thailand. These tiny mammals rarely venture more than 0.62 miles (1 km) from their nests or home caves.

Interference by humans is the main threat to these bats. These bats caves are often visited by tourists. The bats are collected and dried to be used as mementoes. people disturb them while they collect their guano for fertilizer, which is used to increase the nutritional value of vegetable yields.

Kitti's hognosed bat lives in limestone caves along rivers that run through dry deciduous or evergreen forests. Kitti's hognosed bat in Thailand is restricted to the Tenasserim Hills, Kanchanaburi Province. It can be found in the drainage basin for the Khwae Noi River. Although the majority of the bat's habitat is in Sai Yok National Park, Dawna Hills, there are some Thai communities that live outside the park.