What do you see if you look straight up into a chinese fan palm tree? These are the cute Short-nosed Fruit Bats.
in Chinese culture, bats are often seen as symbols of good luck with the Cantonese pronunciation of the word for bat (蝠) being the same as the pronunciation of the word for fortune (福).
These bats are one of the very common bat species (there are around 20+ different species) in Hong Kong. They can often be found in urban environments, especially in urban parks and gardens. Just look up into the folded leaves of the Chinese Fan-palms. The males nibble the leaves to collapse the leaves providing a nice little sheltered home where he can keep his harem.
photo of me and tree courtesy of Cathay Camera Club where we did an outing near Mai Po.
this bat is communicating with me
This bat loves to eat figs, and three species of figs have their seeds spread only by bats.
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