Bat Enclosure at the Bat Jungle, 21/04/14

With me doing my best to illuminate it with the torch!

This facility is a museum, live bat exhibit and research station situated between the Monteverde Reserve and the town of Santa Elena (close to the entry to the Curi Cancha reserve). The centre is viewed by guided tour – and in my case, the tour group was just me! A very friendly Belgian chap with immense knowledge and enthusiasm took me round the little museum - with specimens, posts and interactive features (such as bathroom scales calibrated in terms of how many insects or how much nectar you\'d need to eat if you were a bat, and listening tubes built into giant bat ears to give an impression of how a bat hears). He had a wealth of information - local data showing how climate change was affecting bat distribution, and the very latest data (almost live) on White Nose Syndrome in North America. After this, you get given a small torch and taken into the bat room - the guide spends 15 minutes pointing out the different species and talking you through them, then you are left alone for as long as you like (later tours permitting, I suppose!) to watch them. Flash isn\'t allowed but you can take as many pictures as you like using the torch (not always easy when you\'re the only one there but I managed it!). The bat exhibit is a fairly standard ‘microbat’ glass-fronted, daylight-reversed affair - there was however an offshow ‘cave’ den and a speaker system that plays out the (pitched-down) bat calls into the viewing corridor, and the whole thing was quite nicely finished.

The species displayed were as follows:
Artibeus toltecus - http://www.zoochat.com/2145/toltec-fruit-bats-bat-jungle-21-a-366406/
Artibeus jamaicensis - http://www.zoochat.com/2145/jamaican-fruit-bats-bat-jungle-21-a-366405/
Platyrrhinus vittatus - http://www.zoochat.com/2145/greater-broad-nosed-bats-bat-jungle-366408/
Glossophaga commissarisi - http://www.zoochat.com/2145/commissaris-long-tongued-bat-bat-jungle-366407/
Sturnira ludovici - http://www.zoochat.com/2145/highland-yellow-shouldered-bat-bat-jungle-366410/
Anoura geoffroyi - http://www.zoochat.com/2145/geoffroys-tailless-bat-bat-jungle-21-a-366404/

Of the six species on display, I\'d only seen A. jamaicensis before (and that only once - at Miami) – so I more than got my money’s worth! Only A. toltecus is bred here – the other species are single-sex groups originating from animals trapped during local bat studies (the numbers are small and the centre are very careful only to bring common local species into captivity so there is no adverse effect on local populations).
The whole thing takes about an hour but a very well-invested hour, I\'d say - certainly a far better experience than Zoo Simon Bolivar or Arenal Natura.