From the shadows: The secret, threatened lives of bats

From the shadows: The secret, threatened lives of bats

It could be a scene from a bad horror movie: Torchlights slice through the darkness inside a church in western France as the building echoes with the shrieks of hundreds of bats. But these creatures of the night are scaring no one. They are having their annual check-up, as scientists try to unravel the secrets of an animal whose fiendish reputation has eclipsed its many gifts to the world.

Dozens of Greater Mouse-eared bats are passed from hand to hand-gloved to avoid a bite — by volunteers and scientists in Saint Martin’s church at Noyal-Muzillac, in Brittany. Each bat is painstakingly examined, its sex, height and weight noted, its blood taken, teeth checked for wear, translucent wings stretched out and inspected.

A male pup, born just a few weeks ago in the church rafters, is hanging upside down by its claws in a tube placed on a weighing scale: 19.7 grams (0.7 ounces). Once the physical assessment is finished, the latest addition to the colony is implanted with a tag, no bigger than a grain of rice. “They put a little microchip like you would a dog or a cat, it’s called a pit tag, under the skin on these bats when