I am licensed to care for bats. Sometimes, I am handed a bat pup which may have been found in an area where there is no obvious maternity roost. This year, two bat pups have died despite my best efforts. One (a common pipistrelle female) appeared weak and died on the day that I received it, but the other (a soprano pipistrelle male), thrived until the 8th day, then deteriorated, dying on the 10th day.
Bat group colleagues suggested that the mother may reject a pup, and abandon it, if she felt it would not become a healthy adult.
Do any ResearchGate members have any ideas or can share any relevant papers on this?
Thank you very much,
Mary Wilson
I have no Idea, but I will discuss with my co-author regarding this, I am sorry for that I could not help you at present. But I want to let you know regarding my very small experience in this regards about one months before.
I have encountered one bat pups (Pteropus gigantia) rejected by his parent. It was seen to hanging on a live electric wire in front of my residence, just below the food plant species of adult bat (Ficus religiosa). I carefully collect it without any injure disturbance by a long bamboo stick (not handle directly) and nurtured using milk and fruits like ripe ficus fruits and hanged on a small tree branch attached to my house and below the fruiting tree where every night numbers of bat came to feed. I have tried my best so that parent can re-collect her pups if it was accidentally fall down. But not success. But the pup never survive till 3rd days. I have no idea why the parent rejected the pup or accidentally fall down to the electric wire and discard it.
Prasanta saikia
Thank you for your interesting answer. At the same time that I took care of the pup that died on the 10th day, another colleague started looking after a male pipistrelle pup which is still alive. I think that she and I gave these pups very similar care, although she knew where the roost was, while I didn't. But despite her best efforts, the mother never came to collect it.
She and I were discussing the social interaction aspect of pups raised in captivity; they would not learn from their mothers.
Although not a research article, this news article may be of interest to you:
http://www.oregonzoo.org/news/2017/04/zookeepers-vets-rally-save-life-rare-baby-bat
What a lovely You Tube of the rejected flying fox pup.
Thanks very much. I wonder whether, because this pup was where there were other bats, it did learn social skills?
The pup that I had (male soprano pipistrelle) was in the same room as a table-top vivarium housing two female adult common pipistrelles who were unable to fly, but we could not let him join them. However, we did show this pup to the adult bats, and both adults and pup showed interest.
After birth, the falling of pups to the ground is an occasional but not uncommon event.
It seems that some species always attempt this operation while others tend to abandon the grounded pups.
See my poster (att.)
- Riccucci M. 2016. Your mother is always with you. Retrieving bat pups fallen on the ground.
17th International Bat Research Conference (31st July - 5th August 2016 - Durban, South Africa): 179. [poster]
Prasanta,
the correct name for Pteropus giganteus is Pteropus medius, see the att. paper by Mlíkovský, 2012.
All the best.
Marco
Hello Marco,
Thank you so much for your reply and attachments, especially, your most interesting poster. I have read it with great interest and saved it. I will make it available to the three other members of the bat group with whom I had the discussion about grounded pups.
Thanks again, I do appreciate your help on this subject,
Mary
HI Mary
I am new on here so this is 7 months late reply.!
I also care for orphaned bats. During a very wet summer I had over 100 from one Soprano pipistrelle roost , many newborn pink had crawled into the dwelling and found dead but 40 saved. Its not proven but very likely reason for the abandonment roost and pups that year very poor foraging weather and mothers not maintaining good body weight so continuing to feed young would jeopardise the likelihood of mother survival and potentially many more pups in future seasons. Pipistrelle are a long lived species so it makes "genetic" sense to give up on one years young for the sake of future generations.
But in normal years the I think cats killing or injuring the mothers is the most common cause of pups to be abandoned which leads them to exit the roost and if lucky end up rescued.
Myself and others who look after bats have discussed the idea of mothers seeing some defect in the baby and giving up on it but have seen no evidence for this, none have visible defects when full grown and other than developing slower as the milk fed is not as good as the bat milk. All are strong fliers and echo locate well when released.
Thank you, David, for your really interesting answer. At the moment, we have just 2 long-stay bats who can't fly, hibernating with us.
They will help us with our teaching and publicity re bats once the winter is over. Sadly, we lost out main 'teaching' bat, who seemed to really enjoy being shown off, and seemed to make eye contact with those admiring her!
Very best wishes,
Mary
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