The guests of honor on UF’s campus Friday night came hairy, winged and hungry.
The Florida Museum of Natural History partnered with Gainesville’s nonprofit Lubee Bat Conservancy to host the Year of the Bat Celebration.
At the museum, a mixed crowd of adults, students and children chose from 12 different activities that taught them about the importance of bats.
One display showed types of food and drinks bats make possible by pollination including mangos, oranges and tequila.
Bat feces can be used as fertilizer, too.
“Bats save farmers $3 [billion] to $20 billion a year,” said Brian Pope, director of Lubee Bat Conservancy. “But 40 percent of bat species in the United States are threatened with extinction due to overhunting and deforestation.”
Later, more than 100 visitors lined the fence in front of the bat house and barn on Museum Road to watch the nightly emergence of bats as they fly out to catch their dinner of insects.
UF alumna Emily Taylor said she and her 3-year-old son, Jacoby, came to the event specifically to see the emergence.
As soon as the thousands of bats began flying over the treetops and Lake Alice, it became his favorite part of the night. His mom agreed.
“It’s like a river of bats and something you see in a movie,” Taylor said.
Liz Flores, a 26-year-old volunteer at Tampa Bay Bats, feeds Uno the bat at the Year of the Bat Celebration at the Florida Museum of Natural History on Friday evening. Students and Gainesville residents gathered for an evening dedicated to bats that culminated in watching bats flying out of the Bat House on Museum Road.
