Bats in the Belfry

"But when he brushes up against a screen,

We are afraid of what our eyes have seen:

For something is amiss or out of place

When mice with wings can wear a human face."

- Theodore Roethke, The Bat

The rodents are the most numerous group of mammals, representing about 40% of all species known.  They certainly don't represent 40% of the mammals seen in zoos, but some species, especially the larger ones - capybara, beaver, the porcupines - are fairly common.  I've worked with all three, at any rate, and seen them in many zoos, along with a handful of the smaller species, such as the naked mole rat.

The second largest order of mammals I pretty rarely see in zoos.  I've never worked with them either.  Those are the Chiroptera - the bats.

Bats are pretty omnipresent in the natural world.  You can find them on every continent except Antarctica, and in a wide variety of environments, from jungle to desert to major metropolitan.  They are also one of the most instantly recognizable of mammals - everyone knows a bat when they see one - and the public are fascinated by them.

They remain pretty uncommon, though.  Why is that?

Part of it is that, despite their public appeal, usually associated with images of horror, such as vampires, bats often don't make the best exhibit animals.  They are nocturnal, which doesn't help, and even in nocturnal houses with reverse-lighting, they can be hard to see.  It doesn't help that they don't do much.  Bats fly, just like birds do, but just like birds, they fly to get somewhere, not just for a lark.  When a bird is at rest, it often sits conspicuously on a perch for all the world to admire.  A bat... usually looks like another lump of rock, tucked among all of the other lumps of rock.

I've spent years amassing photo-records of the animals that I observe in various zoos and aquariums.  Most of my bat photos... well, they kinda look like this:

If the word "bat" wasn't literally in the picture, even I'd have a hard time remembering what this is

Diet is another issue.  Many bats feed on flying insects, which is not a diet easy to replicate in a zoo setting.  I'm unaware if people have any luck feeding an insectivore gruel, similar to what anteaters and aardvarks are fed, but if they do, it must not be that prevalent, based on the lack of insectivorous bats in zoos.  Fruit-eating bats, which include the largest members of the order, the flying foxes (with wingspans of over 5 feet in some species) are much more prevalent.  However, they come with their own cachet - many locals have strict regulations against having fruit bats, out of fear that they could escape and become agricultural nuisances.  

Speaking of the flying foxes, it's also worth mentioning that most bats are quite small, and smaller animals have, taken as a whole, been becoming less common as zoos phase out small mammal houses and other designated facilities.   Many of the bats that remain in zoo collections are the larger ones that are easily incorporated into mixed-species exhibits, especially walk-through aviaries and rainforest buildings.  Flying foxes also have another thing going for them - they are diurnal, not nocturnal.

One special bat species has been able to hold its own in collections, despite being quite small, nocturnal, and most definitely not a fruit eater.  That would be the common vampire bat, one of the few species which actually does feed on blood.  It just goes to show that some animals are too weird to overlook completely, and that space can be found for any animal that has enough of a grip on the public fascination.