A sad, rare Scottburgh find
Strictly nocturnal, like strange brown fruit they hang by day upside down by their feet, high in the forest canopy with wings neatly folded.
DID she fly all the way from Mozambique, only to meet a terrible and mysterious end on the picturesque fairways of a Scottburgh golf course?
On the morning of June 18, a dog-walker stumbled upon the pathetic sight of a small, immobile, crumpled figure on a lush fairway of the Scottburgh Country Club. Horrible fresh injuries to the head and behind the neck meant the victim was clearly dead.
Shooing away the enquiring noses of his leashed pets, the walker took photographs and noted the size, puppy-like muzzle and double wing claws of a typical fruit bat.
The walker, a keen naturalist, emailed his gruesome pictures to The Bat Interest Group of KwaZulu-Natal and was immediately prevailed upon by the redoubtable bat expert, Wendy White, to return to the crime scene and bag – and freeze – the evidence.
This was duly done – the dog-walker’s wife being blessed with a particularly tolerant nature and not unused to accommodating strange scientific specimens in her freezer…
“I am very excited,” said Mrs White once she had studied the specimen. “Your bat is indeed a small straw-coloured fruit bat (Eidolon helvum) female, possibly pregnant. I think this is a first confirmed record for KZN, there have been a few unconfirmed sightings.”
Small she certainly was. At only 150 grams and with a body length of some 13cm she was roughly the size of our Wahlberg’s epauletted fruit bat (Epomophorus wahlbergi) commonly heard squeaking and squabbling around fruiting umdoni and fig trees by night.
She would have been dwarfed by typical members of her species. Our largest bats, also known as straw-coloured flying foxes, can grow to over 20cm in length, weigh up to 280g and sport a wing-span of up to 75cm.
Rare, non-breeding migrants to South Africa, they are powerful fliers with steady wing-beats interrupted by gliding and are renowned for covering vast distances in sustained flight. They have even been found resting on ships 240km out to sea.
The closest known breeding colony is on the Marrameu floodplain in Mozambique. Common – but unsustainably hunted for food and muthi – in tropical West and East Africa, they are known for forming huge colonies of around 200 000 individuals. Our less-gregarious visitors are solitary or form small groups of up to 30.
Unlike the insectivorous bats, straw-coloureds have no ability to echo-locate. They rely entirely on their large eyes, with exceptional night vision, to locate the wild fruit, flowers and fresh new leaves they eat.
Strictly nocturnal, like strange brown fruit they hang by day upside down by their feet, high in the forest canopy with wings neatly folded.
Their double wing claws, one on the thumb and one on the index finger, are used to cling to and clamber about branches, while their clever feet manipulate their food to their mouths. Mothers carry their young until weaned – the little guy clinging grimly to mom’s fur.
A bitter-sweet tale then, of one, perhaps two young lives savagely taken for no purpose. What killed our bat and why was she not eaten? A spotted-eagle owl, perhaps, or a harrier-hawk at dawn on the wing?
Vervet monkeys would, I think, be highly unlikely, having snatched her from her day roost, to have abandoned her body uneaten in the middle of an open fairway. We might never know.
Yet it is gratifying that at least one of these cryptic, fascinating, gentle creatures found sufficient natural habitat still in suburban Scottburgh to sustain a visit, however brief.
And however badly she misjudged our natural predators.
