Quick story time: I’ve been back at home in Pennsylvania for a few months, staying in my old childhood bedroom. Recently, I was going through some old journals from middle and high school. And strangely, in the middle of the stereotypical teen girl woes about boy and fitting in, I found…a list of bats. I’m not really sure why I was listed a bunch of bats in my journal, but that’s not even the best part. The list of species is not the list you would normally expect to see. It did include popular choices like flying fox and little brown bat, but also the more obscure wrinkle-faced bat and the “punk bat”.
Using my best insight into the mind of 14-year-old me, I can only assume I was talking about this bat:
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Chapin’s free-tailed bat (Chaerephon chapini)*.
Fun Facts about Chapin's Free-tailed Bat:
- Chapin’s free-tailed bat is found across much of central and southern Africa where it feeds on insects.
2. Punk bat indeed! Only males display the impressive crest between the ears, and is most pronounced during the breeding season. When not being displayed, the crest lays relatively flat between the ears.
3. The crest hairs are a special type of hair called ‘osmetrichia”, which have a special structure that helps them disperse scents from the glands on top of the males’ heads. These scent glands are thought to be part of the males courtship behavior as a way to help attract females.
Pretty punk-rock indeed!
*This particular group of bats (little free-tailed bats) is not well studied, particularly the taxonomic and evolutionary history. Most current taxonomic classifications suggest genus of Mops instead of Chaerephon. You can check for recent updates on bat taxonomy at www.batnames.org.
Literature Cited:
Fenton, M. B., and J. L. Eger. “Chaerephon chapini.” Mammalian Species 2002, no. 692 (2002): 1-2. https://academic.oup.com/mspecies/article/doi/10.1644/0.692.1/2600182