Taiwan is home to over 30 different types of bats. Over half of these types of bats are endemic, which means that they can only be found in Taiwan. The Formosa Flying Fox is one that is unique to only Taiwan. It is also the largest species of bats on the Island.
I love bats, and love to photograph them in their natural environment. I have never had the priveledge to be up close to any bat of this size before. Now that I am here, I would love to find some.
Some zoological sites suggest that the Formosa Flying Fox can be found in caves alongside Taiwan’s northern coastal highway in summer. Anyone know of any caves? Anyone seen one of these guys before?
[quote=“Mr He”]I saw a few in an aborginal village 3 years ago.
they were in a bag - recently hunted.
Too bad I did not get any bat stew, but our host refused to cook them.
Would have loved to try them as well.[/quote]Bats are a fine meal for some folks, not that you would ever catch me eating one. That’s “Frear Factor” material for me.
There are a whole lot of bats in Kaohsiung, but I’ve never seen big ones.
So what do they do with the bats if they don’t cook them?
Sounds like a rare animal, too bad they are still hunted.
Given the kind of homemade muskets used by the mountain pepole to shoot them they can’t be rare. You need a BIG school of bats closely together, before you have any chance of shooting anything.
I know nothing about these creatures. I was counting on lupillus’ post to be acurate when he stated that they are “almost extinct.”
So where was it that you saw them Mr He? That was Derek’s question btw. Which village and where was it? That’s if your memory can go as far as 3 years back…
As I said, We got them in Smangus village as part of a settlement, which was caused by a fair bit of arguing among the atayals. It would appear that the driver we chartered to take us from Taiwang to Smangus was of the wrong sub-tribe, so the aboriginals in Smangus would not let him drive into the village.
They then argued back and forth as Maoman, Sandman, Chung, Mr He, Timogan, ScottSummers and a few more posters and non-posters walked over to see the big trees. By the time we returned, everything had settleddown and our drive got himself a few big bats to cook - he gave them to us, and we had to drive back with some smally dead bats in the rear of the van.
We drove them to Taigang, where out host, Ms. Hera Hsu refused to cook them, as a matter of fact she screamed when we gave her the bag. We were then supposed to walk up to the drivers huse where they would cook them up, but we had too much beer and never made it.
Apart from that nothing funny happened - oh yes the van nearly got pushed off a cliff by an idiot on a bus.
The formosan leaf-nosed bat has a very particular-looking nose, and can be commonly found at low altitude throughout Taiwan, sometimes in groups of thousands.
They are almost as large as the formosan flying fox
The formosan flying fox has a less batish-looking face.
It originated in Green Island, but has been seen in small amounts in Hualien, Kaohsiung, Taidong, Orchid Island. It is an animal on the brink of extinction and hunting it would definitely be illegal.
Mr He has been overindulging in bad Danish blue cheese, which can affect the brain. It wasn’t flying foxes we saw up there, but flying squirrels. Different beasts altogether.