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BohoBio Bio
Hello, my name is Candi, and this is my BohoBio Bio
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Name : Candi the Canary big-eared bat
Scientific Name : Plecotus teneriffae Other Name : Canary long-eared bat, Tenerife long-eared bat Home : forest within Anaga Rural Park, Tenerife Island Favorite Food : moths Personality : highly social with many friends, creature of the night Best Feature : big, beautiful ears that give me super hearing ability Biggest Concerns : surviving human impact Shout out : Bat Conservation International |
WHERE I’M FROM
I live on the island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands, and I have friends and relatives on 2 of the other 7 main Canary Islands. The Canary Island are about 100 km (62 miles) off the west coast of Morocco but are actually part of Spain. Tenerife is a small island (about 2,000 square kilometers) and close to 1 million people live here full time and another 5 million people come for a visit every year. All these humans milling about and making noise are a nuisance to may way of life which relies a lot on my sense of hearing. On Tenerife I spend days resting in caves and come out at dusk for feeding.
TRAITS & ABILITIES
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I look a lot like other small bats with a body length of about 5 cm (2 inches) and a wingspan of about 25 cm (9 inches). But my most distinctive feature are my wonderfully large ears which are bigger than my head and almost as long as my body. These large ears give my exceptional hearing. I live on a diet of mostly moths and my hearing is so good I can hear and follow the sound of a moth’s wings beating while flying around at night. I have the ability to use echolocation like bats with smaller ears use to follow and catch their prey, but I don’t need it because my hearing is so good, I can just follow the moth’s sounds directly. If I can’t find moths to feed on, I can also catch beetles using a method called aerial hawking. |
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FAMILY LIFE
I like to sleep during the day in lave tunnels or caves. I’m also quite happy to sleep in abandoned buildings you humans have made available to us. We like to share spaces together and form breeding colonies of up to 60 bats. These colonies would be larger, but our population is pretty small right now. We females give birth in June and pups are able to fly after about a month.
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I don’t have many natural predators here. House cats try to catch us sometimes, but we can hear them coming and then just fly away. Our biggest threat is humans, who have been cutting down my home forests for use for their own homes, farms and tourist attractions. More than half of our island’s original forests have already been cut down, and our forest homes continues to get smaller.
Also, people spray pesticides to kill bugs that would eat their crops, but these poisons also kill moths and thus decrease our food supply. In addition, the noise from human machines makes it difficult for us to hear moths flying. It seems people don’t realize that what are normal behaviors for them are making life difficult for us. |
PRESENT & FUTURE
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Right now, we are classified as “vulnerable to extinction” with a declining population. We need your help if we are to have a future in which our home is safe. We are fortunate to have friends like “Bat Conservation International”. This group is dedicated to protecting bats like us and our homes. So long as the effort of people trying to protect us and our home are greater than the efforts of people trying to destroy our home, we will have a future presence on our planet. |
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