Peter’s Dwarf Epauletted Fruit Bat

The Peter’s Dwarf Epauletted Fruit Bat is a fan of fruit and is very helpful at distributing pollen in Central and Western Africa.  A species of tree called the Sausage Tree, or Kigelia Africana, relies on the Peter’s Dwarf Epauletted Fruit Bat as its pollinator. The tree’s flowers smell like crap to humans but are totally groovy to the bats as they shove their little furry heads into the flowers to suck on nectar and get covered in pollen, go to the next flower, drop the pollen into the stamen, therefore fertilizing, therefore making more trees, therefore producing more oxygen, therefore helping to make the air good to breathe, etc., and so forth.  Look at these things:

Trees love bats. Bats love trees. Everyone loves oxygen. Without bats, there is no oxygen.

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Mediterranean Horseshoe Bat

Mediterranean horseshoe bats are a rare type of horseshoe bat. The ‘Mediterranean’ part of it’s name is because they are found near the Mediterranean and enjoy vacationing in the Riveria.

The ‘horseshoe’ part of their name is because they wear horseshoes on their feet. I’m totally kidding; they don’t wear horseshoes. That wouldn’t work because they weigh around 10 grams, so horseshoes would be too heavy to fly with, and they don’t walk well, so there you go. Horseshoe bats are really named so because of the shape of their noses. This shape helps them with echolocation of food (insects, preferably moths and beetles). They emit a noise through their nose, the noise bounces around the cave they are hanging around in (literally), and is then bounced back up to its large ears. It can then “see” its surroundings through the sound waves, pinpointing it’s prey. In flight, they flutter or hover and are excellent fliers.

They are also pretty cute: