Tiny bat makes record-shattering flight with 1500-mile migration
Weighing in at less than an ounce, a female Nathusius’ pipistrelle flew from Russia to the French Alps in a super journey that may not be all that unusual, experts say.
A young female bat weighing a quarter of an ounce has flown more than 1,500 miles from Russia to the French Alps, the longest bat flight ever recorded.
The Nathusius’ pipistrelle bat bests the previous distance set by another individual of the same species, which flew 1,381 miles, from Latvia to Spain in 2017.
Nathusius’ pipistrelles are European bats with reddish-brown fur and nine-inch wingspans. Scientists already knew they could migrate several hundred miles, but the new record suggests that these ultra-long journeys are part of their life cycle, says Juan Tomás Alcalde, president of the Spanish Association for the Conservation and Research of Bats in Madrid, who recorded the 2017 flight.
“Two bat migrations of
