Ghost bat
Macroderma gigas
— Where the name comes from
Macroderma is “great skin”, from the Greek makrós and dérma, for the outsized nose leaf and ears; gigas is “giant”. In English it is the ghost bat, for the very pale fur and near-transparent membranes that in moonlight make it look like something without a body — and because it drops onto its prey without a sound.
— Facts
- Group
- Mammals · Mammalia
- Order
- Bats
- Habitat
- Caves, abandoned mines, rocky gorges in arid and tropical country
- Range
- Northern Australia, in fragmented populations
- Size
- 10–13 cm of body, 60 cm wingspan, 74–144 g
- Diet
- Carnivore — mice, small marsupials, birds, reptiles, other bats
- Lifespan
- About 20 years
— Characteristics
- 01
It is Australia’s only carnivorous bat and the country’s largest microbat.
- 02
It wraps its prey in its wings and kills with a bite to the nape.
- 03
It abandons a colony if disturbed during breeding, even once.
— What sets it apart
Nearly all its colonies sit inside abandoned gold and tin mines, hand-dug between the 19th and 20th centuries, and that puts it in an absurd position: the species depends for survival on tunnels built by the people who were exterminating it, and every time an old mine is made safe and walled up for public safety a colony disappears. Saving it today means negotiating, case by case, which holes in the ground stay open.
