Little Blue Penguins

Honduran White Bat

by Emily P. Sudhoff November 1, 2003

Honduran White Bats are also called Honduran Ghost Bats. Their official name is “Ectophylla alba” [1]. Honduran White Bats have white furry bodies. They have little yellow noses and ears. They have pink feet. Their wings are gray. They are almost two inches tall with a wingspan that’s four inches. Honduran White Bats weigh five grams. Figure 1 is a picture of a Honduran White Bat. Honduran White Bats live in Central America in Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama which are shown in Figure 2. They live in lowland tropical forests and banana farms. They live in tents, as shown in Figure 3. They make their tents out of leaves. Several bats work together to make each tent. They make each tent six feet above the ground. Each tent lasts for several weeks.

Figure 1. Honduran White Bats [2]. Figure 2. Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Panama in Central America [3].

1 Honduran White Bats hang upside down in their tents sleeping during the day. If an animal tries to get a bat, the bat will feel the tent shake and fly away. At night bats fly around and look for food. They use echolocation to see at night. Echolocation is a way to see at night using sound.

Figure 3. Honduran White Bat’s tent [4].

Honduran White Bats mostly eat fruit. Their favorite fruit is the Central American fig. After they eat the figs, they poop out the seeds. The seeds grow into new fig plants. Also, they eat pollen and flowers. They eat insects sometimes. Possums, raptors, owls, and snakes eat Honduran White Bats. Raptors are large birds that eat other birds. They snatch bats from the air. They are the Honduran White Bats enemy. Honduran White Bats are having trouble because people are destroying their homes to make room for houses, stores, and farms. Fortunately, the bats have learned to live on farms, so they have a place to live. They are not endangered.

2 References [1] www.batcon.org/batsmag/v12n1-10.html [2] www.earths.birthday.org/explore/teachers/infoghostbat.htm [3] www.2goglobal.com/Where%20to%20go/2%20go%20maps/ central_america_maps [4] www.biologie.uni-ulm.de/bio3/mtschapka/bats.html [5] www.nationnalgeographic.com/wildworld/profiles/terrestrial /nt/nt0129_pto.html

3 Appendix 1 – More Honduran White Bat Pictures

Figure 4. Honduran White Bat during the day. Figure 5. Honduran White Bat at night. [4] [4]

Figure 6. Honduran White Bat in a leaf [5].