Nine of the world’s 34 biodiversity hotspots and approximately 30 percent of the world's bat species are found in Latin America and the Caribbean region.
Bats play vital roles in maintaining healthy ecosystems throughout the region, and many species provide direct benefits to people and economies. Bats are the primary pollinators of an incredible diversity of flowering plants, including wild bananas, balsa and agaves. They also disperse seeds that are critical to forest restoration throughout the tropics.
But despite their great value, many bat populations have declined throughout much of Latin America and the Caribbean, where natural habitats are being destroyed at an alarming rate. Major threats include deforestation, disturbance of major roosts in caves and mines, fragmentation of habitat due to development, and the widespread persecution of bats because of needless fears.
Just a few days ago, at Latitude 10´s tropical garden we found a family of 5 little bats called “tent-making bats” (Uroderma bilobatum). They are called this because they make a place ("tent") to roost when sleeping during the day.
The reason for this behavior is not clear. It may be to shelter more effectively from rainfall. Most bats live in caves or in natural cavities such as holes in trees. But sometimes a good place can be hard to come by. Also, if the bat has to return to the same place every night, it cannot fly too far from home which could be a problem if food is scarce. The tent-making bat has solved this problem. It makes its own home! It does this by chewing the center rib of a large leaf that looks like a banana tree leaf. The bat chews the rib of the leaf, the leaf folds over like an upside-down V, making a roof like a tent. That's where it rests for the night. However, a bat might not always find a good leaf, whereupon it will find any suitable place to rest.
Come and enjoy the wildlife at Latitude 10!
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