When You Stumble Upon a Yellow-winged Bat... - Observation of the Week, 1/18/24

Our Observation of the Week is this Yellow-winged Bat (Lavia frons), seen in Nigeria by @abubakaringim!

“Every December of each year during the last couple of years, my bosom friends and I make it a tradition to visit the Dagona Waterfowl Sanctuary in Yobe State, a section of the Chad Basin National Park,” explains Abubakar S. Ringim (who goes by Ringim), a conservation biologist, activist, and photographer from Nigeria. “It's a wonderful opportunity for us to unwind, have fun, and marvel at the breathtaking beauty of the waterfowl during their winter migration.”

Here's a picture of Ringim (on the right) with rangers at the sanctuary during this trip:

One day, the group ventured into the thicket, trying to get a better view of the birds at Oxbow Lake. 

As we pushed our way through the dense bushes, we were met with sharp thorns that seemed to form an impenetrable barricade. But we persisted, walking and almost crawling to get  a spot with a clear view. It was then that my dear friend Haroon drew my attention to the little bat - a yellow-winged bat perched low on the ground. We approached it with caution, not wanting to disturb it. After taking a few photographs, we moved on with our nature walk, exhilarated by the beauty of the bat.

The genus Lavia is in the family Megadermatidae, which are known as “false vampire bats.” They were once believed to feed on blood like actual vampire bats do, but actually feed on insects and other small animals. Yellow-winged bats, which measure about 58–80 mm (2.3–3.1 in) in length, are only known to eat insects, which they catch using a “sit and wait” method. They can be found across much of Sub-Saharan Africa and they prefer to roost near bodies of water.

Ringim (above, mapping biodiversity at the Yankari Game Reserve), credits his parents for “instilling in me a deep appreciation for the natural world through their love for nature, travel adventures, and wildlife documentaries.” He studied zoology in university, earned a master’s in biodiversity conservation, and his “current research interests are interdisciplinary, encompassing both the natural and social sciences, and include a wide range of areas such as birds, butterflies, wetlands, citizen science, and human dimensions of wildlife management, which is currently the focus of my PhD research inquiry.”

He’s been using iNat for about six years now, for both research and education.

Looking ahead, I'm excited to explore how the data we're collecting can inform biodiversity conservation action and policy decisions in Nigeria. As part of a dedicated team of citizen scientists, we are mapping Nigeria's biodiversity through multiple projects, including the Nigeria Biodiversity Mapping Project and the Baturia and Yankari Biodiversity Mapping Projects. Our efforts continue to yield fascinating discoveries, such as new wildlife additions to Nigeria's checklist, range extensions, leucistic wildlife species, and numerous first-time records of wildlife species captured by indigenous Nigerians, among others. I aspire to leverage the iNat data to propel conservation efforts in Nigeria. 

Personally, iNat has changed the way I view and interact with the natural world, constantly reminding me of the diverse array of species that inhabit our planet and how our actions can affect them positively or negatively. More importantly, it reminds me of the fact that without the data of species' occurrence, abundance, and distribution in this ever-changing world, biodiversity conservation is far from becoming a reality, especially in a country like Nigeria. I am constantly motivated to venture out and capture photos of anything I come across!

(Human photo credits: Idris Muhammad Jalo (above) and Haruna Mohammed Abubakar (below))

- here's a video of a roosting yellow-winged bat.

- the Afribats project has nearly 10k observations of 235 species!

Posted on January 19, 2024 04:12 AM by tiwane