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Nicaragua’s Spectral Bat

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A question via Twitter:

“Is it true that Nicaragua is home to the world’s 2nd largest bat?”
– Tours To Nicaragua (@NicaGuide)

The answer is a qualified “yes.” Nicaragua is home to the spectral bat, the largest known carnivorous bat, and a member of the megabat family.

The largest of the “megabats” is the Giant golden-crowned flying fox (Acerodon jubatus), a rare fruit bat whose wingspan can be almost six feet. Nicaragua’s spectral bat (Vampyrum spectrum) generally has a wingspan just under three feet, and is believed to be the largest carnivorous bat in the megabat family. There may be other fruit bats, in addition to the Giant golden-crowned flying fox, which are larger than the spectral bat, but the spectral bat is larger than all other carnivorous bats.

Pictured above is our director of conservation science, Dr. Kim Williams-Guillen (R), with the famous bat expert Merlin Tuttle (L), Nicaraguan biologists, and a spectral bat found at Nicaragua’s Volcan Mombacho during a 2008 workshop on methods for surveying bat populations.

Let us know if you have other questions about the flora and fauna of Central America!

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We’re pleased with all the press coming out of WILD9. This piece in the San Antonio Current provides a great overview of the event and highlights our work in the context of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor:

Living forest and a tree plantation are perhaps primarily distinguished by the diversity of species present. Howler monkeys, orangutans, giant sloths, and jaguars are the stuff of forests, the substance of biodiversity. For this menagerie to stay healthy, there must be room to roam. In Nicaragua, the founder and executive director of the non-profit Paso Pacífico, Sarah Otterstrom, is working to create that space.

While she has successfully enlisted help from local communities to restore coastal habitat and slowed the trade in sea turtle eggs by paying residents up to $2.50 per hatchling that reaches the surf, her aims extend further. She hopes to one day establish a chain of protected areas linked by ecologically protected corridors along the entire Pacific Coast of Central America. It’s the same concept that first informed a Central American jaguar-protection effort, Paseo Pantera, in the 1990s, and the dream that followed of a Mesoamerican Biological Corridor that hoped to protect undeveloped wilderness from Panama to Mexico.

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Rare giant sea turtle found on Stinson Beach

An endangered giant sea turtle rarely found north of Mexico washed up alive on Stinson Beach after drifting possibly thousands of miles.

“This is definitely a rare find, one of only three live olive ridley turtles I know of reported in the scientific literature since 2001 along the Central California coast,” said Todd Steiner, a biologist and executive director of the Sea Turtle Restoration Project, based in Marin County.

Steiner said the turtle was suffering from what is known as cold-stunning, a unique state of suspended animation that can allow a turtle to survive for months in cold water. The big green reptile was covered with algae, barnacles, shore crabs and ghost shrimp, indicating that it had been floating for a long time. Subsequent blood tests revealed it was malnourished.

We often see Olive RIdley sea turtles nesting on the beach at the La Flor Wildlife Refuge, but shifting currents and climate sometimes get sea turtles a little off track.

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Trained by retired US National Park Service Ranger and Paso Pacifico Board Member Rick Smith, our turtle rangers form the “thin green line” protecting thousands of endangered animals and places. Working ’round the clock, turtle rangers patrol the beaches, monitoring nesting turtles, protecting hatchlings from predators, and using non-confrontational approaches to ask that egg poachers cease poaching on their beaches.

We are extremely proud of our turtle rangers, who have now protected hundreds of nests and thousands of baby turtles, and helped us cultivate a culture of conservation within Nicaragua’s coastal communities.

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We’re pleased to be included in this piece at the Environmental News Service:

MÉRIDA, Mexico, November 13, 2009 (ENS) – For the first time in decades, the eggs of endangered sea turtles buried on a small strip of Nicaraguan beach will not be collected and sold in local food markets. A program developed by nonprofit Paso Pacífico pays residents up to $2.50 for each turtle hatchling that reaches the surf — almost 10 times what they would have brought from the market.

While only one resident participated in the program last year, this year brought in scores.

“The problem was no one believed we would actually pay for a baby turtle and everyone knew they were going to get cash from the sea-turtle egg trader,” said Paso Pacífico founder and executive director Sarah Otterstrom.

You can read more about our sea turtle conservation programs here.

Photos from the particular hatch (25 years in the making) referenced in the article are here.

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