A hike like this covers a lot of elevation, about 1,000 feet from the Rio Cacao to the top of the Bamboo forest, and a lot of habitats. But much of it is rather thick and even when I see something there can be no chance for a quality photograph. Or I see a lizard or poison dart frog and know that chasing it around for a photograph will take a lot of time and likely end up with nothing as they disappear under a log before any decent photo can be taken. But I rather enjoy seeing all these things, and photograph what I can. Here is a set of photos from today's hike.
Just headed off for a couple hours to cover a few minor project details but generally looking for wildlife. Saw a ton of things and some I was able to photograph. I started on the Rio Cacao trail, headed up the North Loop trail, then up into the bamboo and past the Mudd Pond, and finally back down the Access Road. A hike like this covers a lot of elevation, about 1,000 feet from the Rio Cacao to the top of the Bamboo forest, and a lot of habitats. But much of it is rather thick and even when I see something there can be no chance for a quality photograph. Or I see a lizard or poison dart frog and know that chasing it around for a photograph will take a lot of time and likely end up with nothing as they disappear under a log before any decent photo can be taken. But I rather enjoy seeing all these things, and photograph what I can. Here is a set of photos from today's hike. And finally, some bats. Not handling bats makes it hard to get them to species. I am putting these up as Artibeus phaeotis as that is what they look like, but haven't really done the dirty work to make sure of this ID. I will change or confirm this ID after I come out of the field and have some time to look at the photo closely.
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I made dinner in the afternoon and set it aside so that things could go on fairly late at the top of the hill without having to make something when I came down. This worked out well, effectively keeping me off McFarlane's afternoon machete-fest re-opening some of the trails that tend to get grown over each year.
But then he bailed on the really fun part, heading up around 4:30pm to be up there at dusk and into dark to see (and hear) the amazing night stuff. Several bat species were noted, but with the multitude of bats and just me dealing with them, I elected to just photograph one. This is a Seba's short-tailed fruit bat (Carollia perspicillata) and a super attractive animal. Big nose leaf, spiffy whiskers, and oh that sly smile. Some things about bats. This photo shows a number of things about bats (and bat work) and just thought I would talk about such things. This is an eastern red bat, Lasionycteris borealis, that I caught in a mist net and released after recording some information about it. The first thing of note with this bat is that it is not brown, which is the color most everyone associates with bats. Nor is it red like its name, but it is orange with white frosted tips on the fur. Absolutely beautiful animal that most have never seen up close, but rather common across the eastern United States. But this is a tree bat, not found in caves or attics, so easy to not see.
I am using a photo here with the mouth open to show the teeth, which are exposed because the bat is likely unhappy about being caught in a net and then handled. I would be pretty irate if someone did this to me, so I can't blame the bat for seeming to be unhappy. And the teeth are plentiful and sharp with well-developed incisors for dealing with insect prey. There is a gap, which is hard to see here, between the upper canines that allows the bat to produce echolocation calls without teeth getting in the way. Inside the ears there is a large protuberance called the tragus which focuses the returns of these calls so that bats can fly and feed in total darkness. Spiffy adaptations to night feeding on insects. And I have to state here that NO ONE should ever handle a bat without permits and precautions. These are protected animals that need permits to handle and any bat has some chance of rabies exposure which is fatal to humans. Just don't do it. Ever. If you want to see bats up close you really need to work with local wildlife professionals who capture bats and let them show you the animals. Which brings me to the bright blue rubber gloves in the photo. These are nitrile gloves that we use, one pair per bat, to prevent spreading disease between bats. They are not for our protection, but for the bat's protection (all bat handlers are vaccinated for rabies with current medical clearance as well). There are things out there like White Nose Syndrome that kill bats, and we take enormous precautions when handling bats to not spread any disease between our captured bats. So with the blue gloves explained, back to the bat. Here you can see one of the coolest adaptations of bats. Notice that the feet are, in general, opposite of human feet. Bat's knees are 180 degrees rotated from most any other mammal, allowing them to cling to a cave wall or similar and have their back exposed rather than their belly. I think this is one amazing adaptation to their lifestyle, and with this specific bat allows them to look like a deaf leaf on a tree with nearly perfect camouflage. The fur of bats varies widely. The red bat has fur on its wings out to the wrist and fully on the membrane between the legs. Some bats have no fur in any of those places and may not even have a membrane between the legs. But for bats like the red bat that eat insects, a whole bunch of species will actually capture insect prey in the tail membrane and move it to the mouth instead of just trying to snap it in their jaws. Kind of like netting insects in the tail membrane, yet another very cool adaptation. The last thing I will note is the eyes. All bats have eyes and none are blind. The expression "blind as a bat" is great but completely false since they all have eyes and many can echolocate even in light-free caves. But eye size and complexity varies greatly among bats. The red bats have relatively small eyes, while some bats have really big eyes. All adaptations to feeding regimes and needs of the bat species. Just a little bat education which I haven't done enough of lately. After a short break, during which I have been accused of everything from abandoning my blog to being sucked through the time-space continuum, I am back. Next up on the bat coin blog topic is a 2010 Poland 20 Zlotych coin. This coin is part of Poland's Animals of the World series and really, they have a lot of animals in this series. But this coin is similar in some ways to the first bat coin I put up, a 2010 2 Zlotych coin that much less needs said here. Truly a beautiful coin. It is made of 0.925 fine silver (sterling) and comes in at a hefty 28.28g (let's call it an ounce). It is a proof strike so the detail is amazing, and here shown with the mirror finish reflecting black to simulate night. As with the 2 Zlotych coin from 2010, the subject is the Lesser Horseshoe Bat, although this time they are leaving a day roost in a wooden structure (or possibly returning). The rendering of the bats, both those flying and those roosting is very good, and the designer really got the bat correct to species and detail. I love it when that happens. The design includes six roosting bats, four fully shrouded in sleep posture and two with heads exposed in the awake pose. The main flying bat is one of the best on any bat coin with accurate detail right down to a visible tragus in the bat's ear. The other two bats are flying away (so probably leaving at evening) and while small and less detailed they are nonetheless very nicely done. I do find it odd that the little cabin in the distance has no door or windows, but there is always the side you can't see. And Podkowiec maly means small horseshoe, as in "lesser horseshe". Didn't seem to be quite enough room for the Polish word for bat, which is nietoperz The obverse of this coin is essentially the same as the 2 Zlotych from the early post, but this time in splendid silver proof.
Overall one of the best of the bat coins in a lot of ways. Here is a very nice bat coin, and one of the earlier years for such. Most bat coins have come out very recently and anything before the year 2000 is unusual. This is the 1994 $10 (10 tala) Western Samoa Endangered Wildlife coin. Some might call it a token, as it is a Fantasy Issue and part of a long campaign by the World Wildlife Fund to produce coins from countries around the world focusing on wildlife. It is a really nice coin, about the size of the old large US silver dollars (38mm in diameter) and made with 31g of 0.925 pure silver (so about an ounce of pure silver). It is a proof coin and really shines. There is precious little information about this issue anywhere, but it would seem that the initial mintage was about 20,000, although that seems high given how few of these there seem to be around. Even numista.com, which seems to have about every coin ever made on it, does not have this one. One is left to assume that the bat on the coin is the Samoan Flying Fox (Pteropus samoensis) which was discussed in detail in an earlier post about Samoan bat coins. However, this design has a bit of trouble. While the bat is clearly a flying fox, I am not super thrilled with the bold whiskers on the rostrum, as it looks odd. And then there is the bit with the bat seeming to have an opposable "thumb" on the foot, which it does not have. But those two things are merely iffy, the main issue is just wrong. Looking at the bat's left wing you will see the correct anatomy of a bat's wing (more or less). Bats have five fingers, but the second finger runs pretty close to the first finger (skipping the thumb which is the little hook coming off the wrist) and there is only one point at the tip of the wing for both fingers. Now look at the bat's right wing. Oops, it has FOUR fingers all reaching the edge of the wing separately. So a pretty major goof for a coin produced specifically to focus attention on the bat. The other elements of the obverse are pretty straightforward. The date at the top and the "Endangered Wildlife" slogan that is on all these WWF coins on the bottom. Mixed in is a banana plant, which is a source of food for these bats, and some islands with palm trees and a volcano. Very nice. Makes you want to visit. The reverse of the coin is very simple, but quite a nice design. The country at the top, the denomination at the bottom, and the national arms in the middle.
So a super-collectible coin getting harder to find all the time, proof, and made from an ounce of silver. And in theory the initial purchase went to help fund wildlife conservation. A winner of a bat coin, even if they don't really quite know what a bat's wing looks like. This is the third coin in the Stop Ebola! series, and so far I only know of these three. The coin is from Sierra Leone and is a whopping 1,250,000 Leones, so now I can say I am a millionaire! And that is a significant sum of money, approximately US $166 at today's exchange rate. So one of the more expensive face value coins out there. And, at a mintage of just 100, one of the most rare of bat coins. But like the others, it is a Fantasy Issue and not legal tender. And what is not apparent in a photo of just the coin is the sheer size of this thing. It comes in at a stunning 70mm (2.75 inches) diameter and is a brick at 105.3 grams (3.71 ounces). I can not find any information on what metal it is made of, but it is a proof-like mintage (or possibly a true proof) with a mirror surface on the flat parts and frosted on the raised parts. A real beauty. Please refer to the previous two posts about this series for details about the designs and details, but this coin is in particular need of some discussion of the bat itself. At first glance, it almost does not even look like a bat, what with being right-side up and the wings being hard to differentiate from the branches. The face is very blunt for an African flying fox and that foot right by the chest is just odd. Okay, so who came up with this design? Answer: I don't know, but I do know where the design came from. This design is done from a photograph by Anton Croos of a bat moving through the branches (instead of just hanging). I don't have permission to reproduce it here, but here is a link to a blog page about bats that uses the photo with attribution. You will notice it is the exact bat and pose used here. http://whyfiles.org/2014/bats-on-the-wing/ And did you go there? Nice page with lots of very good bat info. And in the caption for the photo by Mr. Croos one should notice that the picture is of a bat taken in Sri Lanka. Last time I looked at a map Sri Lanka was off the southern coast of India and no where near Africa. So... Did they use this bat photo with permission for the coin image? I don't know, but if I were the photographer I think I would not give permission to use an Asian bat on a coin representing Africa. And surely given the high quality of this photo he had a better bat picture around than this one for a coin image. And so there you have it, the origin of the image, but no answer as to how that image ended up on this coin. Other than being huge and now up to 100 Afros, the reverse of this coin is very similar to the reverse of the 200,000 Francs coin from Guinea. And being so big the coin offered quite the challenge to photograph, as it is the size of a hand mirror and just as reflective. Getting a shot of the coin without a reflection of the camera was not easy. And the trade off was that the photos of the coin are not nearly as pretty as the coin itself is in-hand. It really is a beautiful, giant, coin.
So that is it for the Stop Ebola! series. From what I know I can say that these are rare coins (good from a collector's standpoint) and that they seem to have a bit of a mysterious origin and minting (bad from a collector's standpoint as origin and authenticity are key in collecting). Really cool additions to a bat coin collection, but not really sure how they fit in anywhere else. And, since I have made it clear that this final coin is large, I will end with a photo of it next to a US one cent coin for comparison. Which would you rather have in your pocket? (trick question, as the big coin is worth a whole lot more than a cent) Part two of the three posts on the Stop Ebola! coins. Again, these are Fantasy Issue coins and not legal tender, but they are very worthy of having a look at. And for a total cop-out on my lack of detailed information on Ebola or the African Monetary Union see my last blog post. Also, before you ask, both my spelling and the spelling on the coin of "Guinea" are correct. I am using the standard English spelling, while the coin uses the native French spelling (although missing the accent on the first e) of Guinée. Here we have a much larger coin than the Liberia 1 Afro (250 dollars) coin. This hefty coin is from Guinea, and slightly larger than the old US silver dollars back when they were the biggest things out there. It has a diameter of 40mm or just over an inch and a half, or about as big as any coin had ought to be. The denomination is 10 Afros, or 200,000 Francs (about US $22 as of now). And with a mintage listed at a whopping 101, it is one of the most rare bat coins out there. However, as with all of these Afro coins, I really can't figure out who minted them so there is just the seller's word as to how many were made. There is also the question of what it is made of, which can't be answered without something from a mint. The obverse of the coin has the country at the top and the denomination with year at the bottom. Pretty basic there, but they decided to colorize the lettering in red, along with the words Stop Ebola! and part of the international biohazard symbol. The majority of the symbol is in black but then there is a bit of white in there mostly where the word "virus" comes across the mini outline of Africa. The word virus does not have its own color so pretty much invisible here but it is raised metal and can be seen under magnification. The bat is another flying fox, and seemingly pretty accurate in detail, although I can't be sure of which species they are representing. The overall pose is only "okay" in that I find the bat's left wrist (that big thing to the right of the face) is not entirely clear as to what it is for someone who hasn't seen a lot of bats. Most interestingly, the bat itself is all tangled up in a mesh net, which surely must be confusing to the average viewer of the coin (as it is to me). I am guessing here that this is a mist net, and the bat is being captured alive by scientists for Ebola studies. But there is nothing at all to back this up, and since I have personally seen home-made hand nets in Africa designed to capture bats for food, well, that would be bad. Scientists studying bats...good. Locals capturing potential Ebola virus source for food...bad. It would be helpful if that second possible interpretation were not real, but it is. And of course I have to say that the flying foxes tend to have beautiful eyes and a dog/fox-like face, not slanty evil eyes and a mad snarl expression. They could have done that bit better. Not too much to say about the reverse, as it is quite similar to the Liberia coin. The changes here are the denomination is up to 10 Afros (and that braille is really close together for a blind person to read it), it is colorized, and of interest the EASY MONEY monetary logos are missing. Also I should have noted for the previous coin that the symbol of Africa surrounded by rays and stars is actually the flag of the African Union, and not just a random coin design.
The final note here is that while the colorizing of the coin adds some visual appeal, it also detracts from the coin as money instead of artwork. So if you are going to colorize a coin and make it art, well do it well, something they did not do here. I like the colors and how the dominant portions of the coin are silver colored and the colorized parts are just highlights, but the paint job kinda stinks. This is an uncirculated proof-like coin and it has paint spatter to the right of the date on the obverse and lots of places where the paint is chipping or wasn't applied right in the first place. Not so apparent with just a quick glance, but give a look at the 10 in 10 Afros and you will see a lot of paint missing there. Too nice a coin not to finish it well, so I wish they would have put just that little extra effort in there. I am not prepared to offer a complete history of Ebola or how it relates to bats, but it is a dread disease and the occasional outbreaks may have a link to bats. I leave this to the reader to research if interested, as it is a fascinating subject but only here related in that a coin with the words "Stop Ebola" on it has a bat as the main feature. So far I have located three of these Stop Ebola coins, and they will be the next three posts here. They are all Fantasy Issues, as not legal tender, but are certainly important (and in some cases rare) bat coins. They are issued using the name of a country, a denomination in that country's coinage, and a back that says "African Monetary Union" along with a denomination in "Afros." And there is another thing I do not wish to discuss here in great detail, the AMU. Like the Europeans and the Euro, the Africans have discussed various monetary unions for a single currency. This is seemingly part of this effort, but does not seem to be well-connected to any particular effort. I find these coins to be oddities that so far defy reason as to exactly who minted them and why. First up is the 2015 Liberia 250 Dollar coin. It is a reasonably large, bi-metal coin with the inset part (likely copper/nickel alloy) just larger than a US quarter. The outer ring is thin comparted to most bi-metal coins, leaving a lot of room in the center for design elements. The text in the outer rim of the obverse is the country at the top and the denomination at the bottom. The denomination has a five-petal flower/star on each side, and to balance the design they included four symbols. These symbols are tiny versions of the large symbol above the words Stop Ebola. This design is based on the international Biohazard design of three touching rings open to the outside and a full circle in the middle. But to customize the design, they added a miniature outline of Africa in the middle and the word "virus." Of interest, is the words Stop Ebola have an exclamation point after them, a rare use of punctuation on a coin. The bat itself is a flying fox, well rendered and quite accurate. The coin is well-struck and has great detail, although not quite on the level of a proof coin. The back of the coin has a lot going on. Around the rim are the words "African Monetary Union" in a bunch of languages. In the center is the denomination 1 Afro, a unit that has never really been accepted that I know of. And for another point of interest, it is repeated in braille below the English lettering.
The center focus of the reverse is a nice map of Africa showing a lot of the political boundaries, surrounded by a somewhat normal array of rays and stars, although here in great abundance. Near the island of Madagascar there is what appears to be a mint mark, but I am unfamiliar with this design so it could be the designer's logo, a mint mark, or something else. And finally, a bit of humor, intended or not. In the upper right are the four symbols for some of the world's currency units. In order they are the Euro, the Afro (or Afriq), the US Dollar, the Japanese Yen/Chinese Yuan. Which looks sorta like EASY, and the obvious translation as "EASY MONEY" Among the coins with bats on them, there stands alone one coin where the designers just went all out to produce a masterpiece. Here is the 2016 Palau silver proof coin The Bat from their "Animals in Glass" series. It is a very large coin, coming in at a bit under 2 ounces (50g), is square (or diamond-shaped when viewed correctly), and is 0.999 fine silver. Okay, so this is complicated. What is going on here? First, the coin is a silver proof so the flat field in the lower two thirds is mirror finish. The raised surfaces are frosted. In coin terminology this is called cameo, and this coin is certified as deep cameo. The coin is slabbed in a giant plastic holder, so photos are difficult but it does show that the coin graded as PR69DCAM, meaning it is a proof, grade 69 out of 70 so almost a perfect coin, and is deep cameo. And there are bats. And those bats take various forms. First, the main bat because it is, well, the main bat. The bat represented is the Townsend's big-eared bat (Corynorhinus townsendii), which is an awesome bat but is not found anywhere near Palau (no idea why they chose this bat). The parts of the bat come in three design formats, with the body and tail being colorized, the left wing being frosted, and the right wing being...glass. Yes, glass. More on that in a minute, as it is hard to see that wing properly in the above photo. The main bat, and all the bats actually, are very true to life both in design and location. The anatomy of the bat is quite correct, other than the left wing of the main bat having too much gap/membrane between the first and second fingers. And some are flying in reasonable poses and some are roosting on apparent cave roof which is a natural habitat for this bat. Also, they tend to roost in clusters so even that aspect is correct. And the number of design elements used on the front of the coin is impressive! The main bat uses the three elements, but then there is so much more. Two of the flying bats are colorized black and raised over the field while one is colorized black and raised over the frosted area. Five flying bats are frosted and raised over the field and three are mirror and incuse to the frosted area. Eight bats are raised and frosted in silhouette roosting on the ceiling and at the top of the coin is a fully-rendered frosted roosting bat with fantastic (and accurate) detail. The other side of the coin has fewer design elements, but it does a really amazing job depicting the bats. The main bat on this side is deeply detailed and has one wing made of...glass (yes, I will get to that). Everything about this bat is exactly correct, right down to the long tragus visible in the ear to the small lumps this species has on the tip of its nose. Beautiful. There are also two raised flying bats showing detail, and nine fully-rendered bats roosting as a ceiling colony. To the one side is the date, at the top is the denomination inset into the cave rock, and on the right a national symbol. The symbol says Republic of Palau with a man in an outrigger canoe below it, and then above the words "Rainbow's End" is a depiction of Neptune with a treasure chest and a mermaid (ratings alert, she is topless!). So, what about that glass? Glad you asked. I don't know how they did it, but inset into a hole in the coin is a piece of colored glass the exact shape of the bat's wing. And to make this work, the bat on the front and the bat on the back had to have one wing in exactly the same position. So look again and you will see that this is exactly what they did. And here is a photo showing the coin with light coming through the glass. Here the coin is backlit, and really shows off what that glass piece looks like with light coming through it. Absolutely perfect rendition of the bat's wing, down to the waviness of the wing membranes to the veins visible through it and even the light orange coloring by the elbow. Truly a work of accurate art and an amazing accomplishment.
Finally, a photo of the coin in the slab, and the very nice box it originally came in along with the certificate of authenticity. This coin is from the Republic of South Ossestia, a de facto independent republic located in the Georgia Republic. But even after two successful votes for independence, it still remains unrecognized as an independent country. So, while they can issue coinage, it remains officially a "fantasy issue" as it is not legal tender. For 2013 they issued a series of coins in different denominations with wildlife on them, and the 5 Kopek coin has the bat. Of interest, the 1 Kopek coin has the pygmy shrew on it, and there are very few coins with shrews on them as not very high up the list of charismatic wildlife. The coin itself is about the size and weight of a US nickel (21.8mm diameter 5.5g weight) and is composed of a copper-coated steel. In general, this is a pretty good representation of an insectivorous bat, the only kind found in that part of the world. And while the detail is a bit lacking, the broad structures are okay although the bat's right leg and foot (seen on the left) are odd-looking at that angle. And while the coin isn't a super sharp issue, my only real problem with it is that the face of the bat is the highest raised point on the coin and even on an uncirculated coin like this one the details get damaged by merely being put in anything short of a plastic capsule. But close inspection of the face show nice ears, nose, and an accurate open mouth of an echolocating bat. Fact of the day is that many insectivorous bats echolocate through the mouth, and have a wide gap between the front upper teeth to allow for the sound to travel through unimpeded. The reverse of the coin has the national coat of arms, the date, and in several formats it says, "Republic of South Ossetia, Republic of South Ossetia, and South Ossetia.
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