 India ink wash on Arches Paper 20" x 15" $5000. |
With a wingspan reaching a yard and a weight approaching half a pound, the Spectral Bat (Vampyrum spectrum) is the New World's largest bat, as well as the largest carnivorous bat and the largest member of the suborder Microchiroptera. It ranges through most of the New World tropics. At dusk the bats leave their tree cavity roosts to forage for vertebrate prey, which is located by scent and sound. Among the most common prey items are the three species of ani (Crotophaga spp.), blackish, raggedy-looking cuckoos with odd, puffin-like bills, whose communal roosts are betrayed by the birds' rather strong odor. Unlike typical cuckoos, which are brood parasites, the anis nest in colonies and frequently care for their young communally. Here, a Spectral Bat stalks a group of Smooth-billed Anis (C. ani) through the foliage of a Saragundi (Senna reticulata), a small tree of the mimosa family, to which various medicinal properties are frequently ascribed. |
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