MASTER’S THESIS ‘Megabats’ Stephen Turnbull Department of Biological Sciences Faculty of Science Aarhus University, Denmark
[email protected] Supervisor: Associate Professor Jens M. Olesen Cover photograph: Dorte Nyhagen Introduction Why megabats? A brief explanation of my experiences with megabats. I first came across megabats when studying for my honours project at Aberdeen University under the supervision of Professor Paul Racey – an intimidating yet extremely likeable giant of the bat world. I was to study Pteropus rodricensis, the famed golden fruit bat, endemic to the island of Rodrigues; a tiny far-flung speck in the Indian Ocean, politically aligned with Mauritius. I had some idea of what to expect, but no firm plans of how to carry out my studies, relying instead on my confident ability to improvise. Upon arrival, the island presented itself as a catalogue of environmental short-sightedness and ecological collapse, yet the fruit bats clung on to their perilous existence, saved from extinction by the irregular topography of some parts of the island. In a near- vertical and densely vegetated gorge, the bats could roost in peace during the day, flying to their feeding sites each evening at dusk, their destinations presumably carefully planned the previous night. I quickly came to realise a number of problems inherently linked with the study of fruit-bats. Firstly, they’re nocturnal. This presents a whole host of difficulties, not least of which being the absence of daylight. Secondly, there was no way in which to access their roost site, and even if I could, my clumsy approach would disturb them.