Northern ghost bat
Diclidurus albus
— Where the name comes from
Diclidurus is “double-doored tail”, from the Greek diklís, said of doors that open in two leaves, and ourá: around the tail the male has a glandular structure that opens into two flaps. Albus is the Latin “white”, and is the reason for the common name: among more than fourteen hundred species of bat, the genuinely white ones can be counted on one hand.
— Facts
- Group
- Mammals · Mammalia
- Order
- Bats
- Habitat
- The crowns of palms and large trees, often near water and settlements
- Range
- From southern Mexico to Brazil, and Trinidad
- Size
- 6.5–8 cm of body, 40 cm wingspan, 17–24 g
- Diet
- Insectivore — moths and other insects taken high above the canopy
- Lifespan
- Little known
— Characteristics
- 01
The fur is pure white and the membranes whitish and translucent.
- 02
It roosts hanging among palm fronds, not in cavities.
- 03
It hunts very high, often above the level of the trees.
— What sets it apart
White, in a nocturnal animal, looks like a contradiction and is not: hanging under a palm frond, against the bright sky seen from below, a pale body vanishes while a dark one stands out. It is the countershading principle of pelagic fish, applied to a mammal that sleeps by day in plain sight. Whoever finds one nearly always does so by accident, looking up towards the sun and noticing that one of the patches of light between the leaves has ears.
