Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a high school student, bat advocate, and Save Lucy volunteer. Rachael’s interest in bats was sparked by the big brown bats that used the outside of her former home for a winter roost. Rachael has been writing the Baturday News for over three years.

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week! My week was going along just fine until Friday when I had my first SOL of the year. That’s right, it’s testing time again. Personally, I think all this standardized testing isn’t really good for much, but they did not ask me. I wish they had. On the bright side, standardized testing time means the school year is almost over.

I read an interesting article this week that I wanted to share with you. It is about a newly discovered species of bat! The bat is a beautiful leaf-nosed bat that lives in the mountains of Venezuela and Columbia.

Scientists were studying the bats of the region and realized that two groups of bats that had been classified as one species were actually a new kind of species entirely. They called the bat Sturnia adrianae. Until now, the bat had been lumped into the species Sturnia ludovici. Scientists have divided the new species into two subspecies: S. a. adrianae and S. a. caripana. The first one is larger and lives in western and north-central Venezuela, and Columbia. The other one is smaller and lives in northeastern Venezuela.

The scientists are worried about the bats because the area they live in is under threat from slash-and-burn agriculture. That means that the forest will be chopped down and burned so that it can be used as farmland. This method of farming can cause wildfires to spread in the area. To protect the bats, the researchers would like S. a. caripana to be considered a Vulnerable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

If you would like to read more about this discovery, you can read about it here. Please pay special attention to the picture of this magnificent bat. Not only is this a beautiful animal, but it smiles for the camera!

I hope you all have a nice week!