Next week our lesser dog-face fruit bats, Cynopterus brachyotis, will retire to their new home at the prestigous Lubee Bat Conservancy in Gainsville, Florida. While we will miss working with them and observing their shenanigans, we know they will continue their adventures in the sunshine state.

Our bats have an interesting history. We received them from Swartz Lab, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Brown University, where they participated in non-invasive research. The goal of some of the research was to study the mammalian skeleton during flight. Sharon Swartz has published a considerable number of papers utilizing the bats in our exhibit as the study animals, read those papers HERE. Swartz Lab has a lot of bat information and is a good basic resource for bat physiology.

Stop by this week and wish the bats good luck on their move! Read about their future home, Lubee, by clicking HERE. Moving in to the cave to replace the fruit bats will be a large water monitor Varanus salvator. After some changes to the exhibit space, the monitor should take up residence by the end of the year.

Below are some photos of the bats while they participated in the physiology study. All photos are property of Swartz Lab, Brown University.