In New Zealand, the return of wild takahē populations marks a cautiously celebrated conservation victory, and the return of one of the world’s rarest creatures. The birds had been formally declared extinct in 1898, their already-reduced population devastated by the arrival of European settlers’ animal companions: stoats, cats, ferrets and rats. After their rediscovery in 1948, their numbers are now at about 500, growing at about 8% a year.
I missed the other ones… Must’ve been hiding behind the first one…
Long tailed bat and short tailed bat.
We used to have 3 but the bigger version of short tailed bats died out.
Two! Two bats!
(The actual bats don’t look anything like these bats. This is just a tribute)
Lol, you two have me picturing literally just 3 bats in the whole country and the middle one being upset he isn’t biggest or smallest and is plotting to take one of the other 2 out.
Want a another fun fact? The bats evolved to spend a lot of time just walking around on the ground.
And, there’s a special species of fly that lost the ability to actually fly, and for transport it rides around on the backs of the short tailed bats.
Edit: links in next comment.
I enjoy that I can no longer tell if you are serious or not!
What a country! 😂
All my fun facts are 100% real! Footage of short tailed bat walking around on the ground.
Wikipedia entry on Bat Fly .
Department of Conservation bat blog about the flies, with pictures.
Hmm this bat is so cute I might go post it on an ecology community now. :-)
The bat is definitely cute!
I really need a photoshop-like app on my phone for things like this.
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