by Angela S. Young

Created on: June 01, 2007

The Bumblebee Bat is about the size of a bumblebee, or the end of your finger. This bat claims fame as the tiniest species of bat, and the "smallest mammal in the world". It measures about "30-40mm" and weighs about "1.5 2 grams"

You may have never have heard of this bat, even though it is so remarkable, because it can only be found in the "Sai Yok National Park" of Thailand and in "adjacent Myanmar".

The Bumblebee Bat is also known an "Kitti's Hog-nosed Bat". The bat has a reddish-brown color (to greyer) on top with a lighter version of that color underneath. It has large ears, and a "pig-like snout". It's ears "extend beyond" it's snout when it is "lying forward".

These bats like to eat insects, so you would be more likely to see them at dusk when they fly around looking for their next meal. It can catch its meal in flight, or hover and eat spiders and other small insects off of plants and trees. It has long, broad wings with "pointed tips and dark membrane" and a span of up to 17cm.

It lives in the back of caves, far from the entrance with its colony of no more than 15 bats. It lives with the colony, but it likes to keep separate from them with a space of it's own and solitary habits.

These bats were unknown before 1974. Kitti Thonglangya, a Thai biologist, discovered them in 1973, and the bat was later named in her honor after she died suddenly in 1974 by her "British colleague, John E. Hill". They are an endangered species due to "deforestation and unsustainable levels of teak logging" added to their limited habitat. The Bumblebee Bat is "one of the eleven most endangered species on the planet.

While its tiny size insures its cuteness and its fame, the bumblebee bat at only 160 strong, without proactive measures, will soon only grace the pages of books. Check them out on the web.

Resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bumblebee _Bat
http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~timm/dm/bumblebee.html

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