Hi everyone! I hope everyone had a good week and I hope you all enjoyed the holidays of Easter and Passover. I also hope you all had a very happy Bat Appreciation Day! Bat Appreciation Day is a day to celebrate how wonderful bats are and how valuable they are to the whole world.

While appreciating bats, I found an article about bats in the Philippines. This study analyzed the genetic differences in bats that live in the Philippine islands and other bats of Southeast Asia. These differences show that bats of the Philippines either need to be reclassified as different subspecies or classified as an entirely new species of bats. The study included 19 of the 27 fruit bat species in the Philippines. Of those, five species had a 6-7% genetic difference to fruit bats in Southeast Asia. According to the researchers, all of the data collected during the study shows that bat species in the Philippines are more threatened than scientists originally thought.

If you would like to read the article, you can find it here.