Hi Folks
Last night we took a break from forest trapping to go to the caves at Kota Gelanggi. This turned out to be a good plan, as it poured with rain (suprise!) back at Kuala Lompat. We left around 3 pm and got to the caves around 4.30 pm. The caves are a huge complex, but we just focussed on a couple of them, as we were trying to get samples of two species in particular, Hipposideros diadema and Rhinolophus affinis. So at one small cave, Gua Tongkat, we set up a harp trap like we did at Gua Samat to get the Rhinolophus affinis. At a larger cave, we set up three mist nets to get the H. diadema. Unfortunately there was a group of about 50 high school students camping right by Gua Tongkat and we think all the noise had disturbed the bats there — we did catch about 25 R. affinis but they were mostly males (and Ain needs the females). Last month when things were quiet she caught at least 20 females in the exact same spot. Disturbance at caves is one of the big threats to bats around the world; if they are disturbed too often they will abandon the cave completely.

The mist nets managed to get about 15 Hipposideros diadema, but the number of females was again less then when Ain was here last month. We caught a few other species, including the Emballonura monticola that we caught in the forest the other day. As before, we split into three groups, with Ain doing the breeding study, Julie photographing wing shapes, and me taking body temperatures. Anybody sitting about with nothing to do was sent to check the nets and traps!!

We finally finished up around 1 am and got back to Kuala Lompat around 2 am, so everyone slept in late this morning!

Tonight (weather permitting) we are back in the forest.

Top - Gua Tongkat. Bottom - Saveng near the opening of Gua Tongkat where we set the harp trap

Saveng and Julie setting up the harp trap in Gua Tongkat

Bats aren't the only critters in and around the caves. Top: a very large (about 20 cm) walking stick. Middle: a rather large spider with her egg sac. Bottom: a large toad in one of the pools by the cave. Being a bat biologist I'm afraid I don't know any of their names!

1am, time to release the bats. Top: Julie saying goodbye to a Hipposideros diadema. Below: Jirah and Diah releasing a Rhinolophus affinis