Seven Bats Strong

The trails, everyone will be relieved to know, have really dried out pretty well and we've enjoyed several sparkling days of sunshine here in the Snug, cheering up our loads of visitors to no end. (Numbers have been high; just yesterday I led a whopping 32 people around the marina in a harbor walk, creating as many hazards as possible for the hapless tractors.)


The Eastern Pipistrelle Bat, being his small little self.



In more exciting news, I've just been informed by Paul Brown, our chief of Natural Resources, that we'll need to change our mammal talk. We've been saying the island is home to eighteen species of mammal, but it has just been definitively confirmed that we have a seventh species of bat here on Isle Royale - the adorable Eastern Pipistrelle; bringing the total number of mammal species to nineteen.



The Eastern Pipistrelle Bat at leisure.



The Eastern Pipistrelle joins the big and little brown bats, the hoary bat, the northern long-eared bat, the red bat, and the silver-haired bat. They're insectivores and extremely tiny (they only weigh about 4-8 grams.)



In honor of the occasion, I have composed an Isle Royale bat poem:



It's an Eptesicus focus, will you focus on that?

He's the big brown one of our seven species of bats.

It hangs with the northern long-eared and eastern pipistrelle -

There's little brown, hoary, and red bats as well.

And the silver-haired bat; let's not forget him!

Lasionycteris noctivagans, out on a limb.

They're tiny and furry and have little bear faces

Out of nineteen mammals, filling seven of the spaces.  

Someone should set that to some banjo music or something. Let me know how it goes. We can have a concert on Bat Island.