THE TRUE REASON WHY THE NEW BAT SPECIES IS ORANGE

A new bat species of the genus Myotis was recently discovered on the Nimba Mountains in Guinea, at an altitude of about 1400 meters (the two animals captured by the researchers were flying out of an abandoned mine adit).
The new species is called Myotis nimbaensis, after the place it lives in.
These bats form colonies that may be small (down to just single individuals), their diet is still unknown, and they're tiny enough to easily fit in a researcher's hand.
Their most striking feature, though, is their color.
They have, indeed, a "bright orange fur on the head and the ruff around the neck" (P), with an "orange-brown thumb and a brown foot" (P) and, unlike other related bat species, a lack of pronounced black spots on their face.
Moreover, they are "strongly dichromatic with black wing membranes and orange along the digits and forearm" (P).
Both wing dichromatism and reddish to yellowish fur, however, are not unusual in the subgenus (Chrysopteron) M. nimbaensis belongs to.
Myotis nimbaensis is the 11th species of the Myotis genus found in Africa (mainland) out of over 120 species existing almost all around the world.
The researchers think that there are good chances there be more species to be discovered, and say that their finding "highlights the critical importance of the Nimba Mountains as a center of bat diversity and endemism in sub-Saharan Africa" (P).
The researchers expect, in fact, that, as M. nimbaensis is "an uncommon to rare endemic with a very small geographic range" species (P), it be already critically endangered.
 

Now, dear reader, enough with the details, it's time for the real important stuff. This dumb blog, in the following cartoon, will tell you the true reason why, these bats, are orange!

Myotis nimbaensis bat according to @sciencemug

[Bat pic: source is "A new dichromatic species of Myotis (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) from the Nimba Mountains, Guinea" (pag 10); adapted by @sciencemug]

 

The paper this cartoon is about (P)

P- Simmons, N.B., Flanders, J., Bakwo Fils, E.M., Parker, G., Suter, J.D., Bamba, S., Keita, M.K., Morales, A.E., and Frick, W.F. (2021). A new dichromatic species of Myotis (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) from the Nimba Mountains, Guinea (American Museum novitates, no. 3963).

OF BATS, POOP AND RESEARCH: AN INTERVIEW!

OF BATS, POOP AND RESEARCH: AN INTERVIEW!

(in Eng?ish)

(Craving for more crazy interviews? Go here, here & here!)  

The interview opens with PiPs dressed like a Batman form the ‘70 clearly running away, with the spirited eyes of a scared to death idiot character of a dumb blog, from hundreds of wildly crazy-enthusiast super-cute bats hunting it for an autograph, and from a raging mob of balloons of different sizes, shapes and colors filled with “KA-POW!”, its little brother “POW!”, ”SMOK!”, ”BAM!”, ”SWOOSH!”, the antsy "GASP!" and the terrible unforgiving ”THWACK!” (which sounds a bit like a mix of Clint Eastwood’s look after he finds out that the last spoon of his favorite ice cream flavor has been kidnapped by a fake scout who in reality is a middle aged short fella with the worst case of halitosis in the recent history of medicine and who profoundly dislikes Spaghetti Western and muscle cars with an Italian city in their names, aaand Chewbecca “singing” a Skrillex track at the top of its lungs) which - the mob - wants its six months overdue paycheck.

The Batman logo on the "chest" of PiPs comes from a free photo by Henry & Co. and the bats come from a free photo by Rinck Content Studio; both pics are adapted by @sciencemug. Source of both pics: Unsplash

Eventually PiPs manages to lose the balloons by distracting them with the cardboard cutout of a sexy Cat Woman chasing a spot of light, but not the bats, and, while hiding behind the url of the Wikipedia page of baobabs covered by a purple anti-biosonar cloak made in Jokerland, notices a man who follows the bats who, in turn, notices it:

- Man, please – PiPs says terrified - don’t tell ‘em I’m here, if I sign another autograph I’m going to loose my arm, and therefore my armpit, and thus my deodorant sponsorship thanks to which I can afford to pay the rent to live in this lousy blog… By the way, who are you? And most importantly, do you know what those things are, some sort of furry UFOs (or, as they’re called now, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) with an insane passion for cheap vintage tv-shows maybe?

- My name is Jason Preble, I’m a PhD student at the Kyoto University, and those are not things, they are bats, the only mammals capable of true flight [by the way you, dear human reader, are a mammal too, you know, just a reminder... Note of SM] . More precisely they are a couple of species of bats which ecology (N1) I’m studying: the Ryukyu tube-nosed bat and Yanbaru whiskered bat. They only live in the remaining forests of three islands at the far southwest end of Japan: Okinawa, Tokunoshima, and Amami-Oshima.

The black bat (on the left) is the Yanbaru whiskered bat, the brown bat (on the right) is the Ryukyu tube-nosed bat [Credits: original pics (one of each bat) by Jason Preble (adapted by @sciencemug)]

P- I see, I see… So, being from Japan, besides DC Comics they’re probably into manga too… Well I guess, then, it’ll be safer for me to choose a zombee costume for Halloween, as I don’t recall any comics or manga ‘bout zombees. Or maybe I should wear the tragic mask, only few know about, of Rusty, the Tap-dance shoe which becomes a drunkard (and eventually decides to end itself by buying a particularly keen on footwear St. Bernard puppy) after its dream of becoming a spy is broken because of its inborn inability to be noiseless…

Anyway Sir, why on Earth are you chasing them?

JP- These bats are considered endangered, meaning that