They are discreet, weigh only 6 to 8 grams and their calls are inaudible to the human ear. Yet Mauritius’s cave bats provide invaluable services to both nature and mankind, regulating the insect populations they feed on every night.
Insectivorous cave bats are commonly known as “little molosses”, because their snout is bulging like a mastiff’s. Every night, these mammals endemic to Mauritius can eat the equivalent of their weight in insects, mosquitoes and fruit tree pests. Described only once in 2008 under their scientific name, Mormopterus acetabulosus , they had not been the subject of further research, until a university student, Ashmi Bunsy, decided to make them her PhD subject…
Considered a common species fifteen years ago, they are now endangered. Ashmi Bunsy has counted around 8,000 individuals in 11 caves throughout the country, and explains this decline by the destruction of their habitat, caves and caverns, and by the abusive use of pesticides, for which Mauritius beats the record for use per hectare, thus affecting human health, biodiversity and soil fertility… The little hound could be just part of the solution to this problem, if its habitat were not transformed into a clandestine dump, an illicit septic tank, a point of drug trafficking or occult practices, etc. We urgently need to restore caves to their role as biodiversity sanctuaries.
