Hello Everyone,

Dr. Kingston is letting me write the report for today. I have been in Malaysia now for about a week. Every night and every morning I have gone into the forest with the crew that checks the traps. The rainforest is beautiful! The forest is always full of sounds, but they are different in the daytime and at night. The say that “everything is bigger in Texas”, but I am afraid that is not always true. My first time in the forest, about 10 meters up in a tree was a spider web that was bigger than a Walmart and the spider was large enough to eat a 4th grader! The forest is also filled with interesting insects- giant walking sticks, a huge rhinoceros beetle, and too many other kinds to even count. The forest trees are also huge; they must be four or five times tallerer than the oak trees in my yard in Lubbock.

The bats, however, are not large. Kerivoula intermedia are tiny; they are slightly smaller than my thumb and most of that is fur. It was exciting for me to see the bats that I had been learning about on the website. They really look just like their photos! Hipposideros diadema is a big guy, with sharp looking teeth, so I stand back when the others in the crew are handling them. My favorite time is when we release the bats after we have finished processing them. They hang on the branches for a while and then take off and fly around while they get their bearings and figure out where they are. I never thought that I would be able to see bats up close and personal like I have here.

I have seen lots of interesting bugs, birds, and mammals in the clearling around where we are staying. Last evening I saw a group of monkeys, including a baby, playing in the branches. I have kept a sharp eye out for tigers, but so far we haven’t seen any. The only annoying animals I have discovered so far are the leeches. It doesn’t hurt when a leech gets on you, so it is surprising when you take your boots off and discover a big red patch on your socks.

When we are not working we take naps and I like to go for walks. The other day I walked to the local village where I ran into lots of children. They were very excited when they learned that I was from Texas (although I am sure they would be equally excited to meet someone from Massachusetts). They seemed to play just like kids in the US (riding their bikes, playing volleyball and soccer, and eating ice cream cones).

I hope that you are enjoying learning about bats, the rainforest, and Malaysia. These are wonderful creatures so I hope that the research that they are doing here will help to conserve them.

Bye Bye, Mark McGinley