fruit bats of Triplicane !!

 

Ever seen them so close !!  ??  !!

Decades ago, we  saw famous batsmen  using and endorsing  bats like Slazenger, G&M, Grey Nicholls, SG, SS, BDM  and the like….. now you see bats without brand name explicit but advertiser’s logo prominent !! (in between those days there were ‘oiled /non-oiled bats’) ~ for a change this is no post on Cricket but on bats !!

We have seen them on some old temples, I have seen them at Thavana uthsava bungalow gori !!  - the  Egmore Museum does not just house priceless artefacts from the past. It also houses colonies of fruit bats in the trees outside, as a plaque informed the  visitors those days.  This season I am seeing them again  come with a buzz in the evening  –   they fly with unerring precision from nowhere and hang on the Arasa maram [peepal tree] at Vasavi Parthas, Venkatrangam Street, Triplicane, Chennai 600005. 

When we think of bats, an unfavorable image often comes to mind. Whether it's the scary portrayal of them in vampire films and literature or a general fear of how their real-life counterparts might transmit viruses, bats have gotten a bad rap that's actually more fiction than fact.  Understand that there are more than 1,400 bat species in the world ! Bats can be as large as a small dog or as small as a bee. The ones that come nearer home are of the size of crows - are fruit bats !! The largest bats are the flying foxes with wingspans of up to 2 metres and a body weights of up to 1.5 kilograms.

Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera. With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more manoeuvrable than birds, flying with their very long spread-out digits covered with a thin membrane or patagium.  For centuries, bats have been called sinister and spooky, likely because of their beady eyes and razor-sharp fangs. But there’s more to these nocturnal creatures than meets the eyes.  The scientific name for bats Chiroptera,  is Greek for “hand wing.” That’s because bats have four long fingers and a thumb, each connected to the next by a thin layer of skin.  To navigate dark caves and hunt after dark, microbats rely on echolocation, a system that allows them to locate objects using sound waves. They echolocate by making a high-pitched sound that travels until it hits an object and bounces back to them. This echo tells them an object’s size and how far away it is. 

Though they are reportedly harmless, they are scary, noisy and in the twilight – crows do appear agitated, when these bats start homing in to the peepal tree. .. .. and in the mornings, there are lot to be cleaned !

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

5.11.2025