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| A few bats in flight | ||
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| A cave cricket | A tricolor bat (Perimyotis subflavus) (formally called a Pip) | Alabaster Caverns has weather equipment in the cave constantly taking temperature, humidity readings, and yes, even wind speed! |
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| Close up of Cave Myotis | We had a new toy this year. An Infrared camera... it can detect heat from an object. | We turned off the lights and shot one of our people... that little light is his headlight but on the infrared he's a cave monster!! :) |
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| So here is a couple of bats in real light | And the same three in infrared. | One group normal light |
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| Putting the gun on them... | How that same bunch looks. Note that some are lighter than others. If their body temp is close to the rock they are hardly detectable. | But if they are awake, their body is warming up out of sleep. See the guy on top with his eyes open? |
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| That's him - the big BRIGHT spot! He's that much warmer than his neighbors. | But as stated before... | our bats looked healthy... |
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| with no signs of WNS... | but we send off the vials with the sample swabbing's anyway... | Arms, wings when we could see them, and noses were all clean with no abrasions, mold, or dryness. |
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| The 2017 Alabaster Bat Count Crew (Minus Mel who is taking the picture) | Mike taking us back up to the top! Thanks Mike for letting us all help!! | |
