Gould's Wattled Bat
Adult Female, Drinking
Ellura
Gould's Wattled Bat
Adult Female, Face & Wing
 
                      
Gould's Wattled Bat (Chalinolobus gouldii)Class: Animals (Animalia) - Chordates (Chordata) - Mammals (Mammalia)
Order: Bats (Chiroptera)
Family: Vesper Bat (Vespertilionidae)     iNaturalist Observation
Species: Gould's Wattled Bat (Chalinolobus gouldii)
This Photo:     🔍Adult Female, anterior🔎

Thank you Michael Pennay for confirming and Jakob Fahr for helping with the id of this species for us

General Species Information:
Found on Ellura (in the Murray Mallee, SA) and elsewhere
Nose to tail, she was ~80mm long.
We were dismayed to find this poor bat trapped behind a plastic cupboard in our annex. Since then we have sealed everything up better and stopped this from ever happening again. Very dehydrated and suffering from the heat we put gloves on and managed to get it out without injury. There's a short video here showing Marie giving it a drink. We then put it on the roof of our car to cool down (in the shade) and a few minutes later it flew off looking refreshed.
You must never handle bats as they can carry a lethal (to humans) virus; Australian bat lyssavirus (ABLV).

Copyright © 2016-2024 Brett & Marie Smith. All Rights Reserved. Photographed 10-Feb-2016
This species is classed as LC (Least Concern) in the Murray Mallee, SA, by DENR (Regional Species Status Assessments, July 2010)