A bat that prefers to spend the winter in the snow (8 photos)

Interesting and educational facts about the Ussuri tubebill - a bat that hibernates right in the snow.





Just imagine: you are walking through a Japanese winter forest, experiencing Zen and enjoying the views. When suddenly something small and brown catches your attention. You'd probably walk by with a wrinkled nose. But the Japanese turned out to be a more curious people and decided to look at such a unique detail of the landscape. So what would you think? They were amazed to discover that the brown thing was a bat! And quite alive, just fast asleep.

And it would be nice if the inhabitants of the land of the rising sun dug these kids out from under the snow a couple of times. But no, they found these animals in a snowdrift every winter! Eventually this story reached Japanese scientists. And it really puzzled them. Where have you seen bats sleeping in the snow in winter? I had to find out what this wonderful miracle was.



The same lonely potatoes that have been lying around in the cellar since 1900.

The flyer turned out to be a Ussuri tubebill. The animal, like any bat, resembles a fluffy lop-eared potato, 7 centimeters long and weighing 5-6 grams. The bat lives in Japan. And also on the Korean Peninsula, Primorye, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands.





The genus of tubenoses is distinguished by the structure of its... nose. Their nostrils look like short tubes, which is how bats got their name

In the summer, tubebills do the usual bat things - eat and raise their young. They are active at night. After sunset, the animals hunt insects. Do they still remember that they use echolocation for this? And during the day, bats hide in crowns, hollows, or even among fallen leaves. There they form colonies where females raise their young.



What strange fluffy apples you have in Japan...

But the most interesting things begin with the arrival of cold weather. Most bats have two options for how to spend the winter. The first is to find a secluded place and hibernate. These are usually caves where the temperature and humidity remain stable throughout the winter. The second is to fly to the south. Yes, just like birds. The Ussuri tubebill decided not to choose between two controversial options. He invented a third one and learned to sleep right in the snow!



While we puzzle over cryogenic technologies, bats simply freeze themselves throughout the winter.

In autumn, when the temperature drops below five degrees, the tubefish exchanges its deciduous shelters for hollows. There he falls into a state of stupor. But periodically he comes to his senses, checking the landscape on the street. And so, when the ground is covered with a blanket of snow, the flyer goes to build himself a “den”.



How inanimate, but alive!

The baby plops down right into the soft snow and makes a hole in it. The formed ice cocoon closes the animal from the outside world. A little dusting of snow will make it perfect. Gradually, the animal falls asleep: breathing and heartbeat slow down, and body temperature drops to 10 degrees. The heat generated melts the snow, and the bat goes deeper and deeper under the snowdrift. This is how the Ussuri tubebill spends three to four long months.



No matter how strange it may sound, spending the winter in such a mini-den is very comfortable. Snow is a good heat insulator. Especially when compared with hollows. And the draft from the cold wind will not reach you. Moreover, snow cover is an ideal protection against predators. If the prey does not run on or under the snow, why look for it at all?



Excuse me, can you tell me where the nearest fresh snowdrift is? It’s still January, I still have time to sleep!

There is only one drawback - short-term thaws. In unstable weather, the snow may melt, and then tubenoses appear from under the snowdrifts, like snowdrops. These are the animals most often found by local residents. For the tubenose themselves, such thaws are not a problem. And even if the snow suddenly melts completely, the bat will wake up and fly off to look for another snowdrift.