Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Look, up in the sky! A new bat!

A large, very distinctive new species of bat has been described from the Philippine island of Mindoro. Flying foxes are the world's largest bats, with wingspans on some types in the range of 180 cm. The new bat has orange fur and three white stripes on its face. An American-Filipino scientific expedition caught the type specimen after hearing of its from island residents. As zoologist Jake Esselstyn put it, "A local resident of [the town of] Sablayan first described the flying fox in great detail to us, but we were unconvinced until the species showed up in our nets." Now it's in the Journal of Mammology as well.

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