National Geographic: Panama Wild - Rain Forest of Life Page #3

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Its prey is pint-size, like itself...

...a katydid camouflaged

unsuccessfully as a leaf.

Even while enjoying its meal,

the marmosa must be wary...

if it doesn't want to end up

as dinner itself.

Dipteryx seeds make a nutritious

meal for a spiny rat,

and a dangerous one as well.

Gnawing on the tough seed makes

enough noise

to attract the unwelcome eye

of a passing margay.

The tiny forest cat enjoys its meal,

until disturbed by yet another

denizen of the dark.

Only at night does Elizabeth Kalko

venture out on her own quest.

The Barro Colorado Island

she knows is very different

from the one most people see.

The night is a totally different

world from the daytime.

We are just exposed to a wonderful

orchestra of different sounds,

of many insects and frogs,

then you see the stars

through the canopy

and this is just an incredible

atmosphere.

And occasionally there are

bats fluttering by

and even touching you

with their wings.

The night holds no fear

for Elizabeth.

She is in her element,

and bats are her passion.

She hangs nets of fine mesh over

small streams, fishing for bats.

She believes bats are the unsung

heroes of the night,

vital to the survival of dipteryx,

and many other tropical giants.

That's a short-tailed fruit bat,

and although they are relatively

easy to get out of these nests,

one has to be very careful

about their sharp teeth.

Bats rely on forest trees for

food and shelter,

but they'll repay their hosts

as they make their nightly rounds.

Legs are free, whoops,

don't bite me, be nice, all right.

I don't think that bats are

really ugly,

I think that the misconception

that bats are ugly comes from

our very limited knowledge

about bats.

Most of the bats have very,

very, very pretty faces

and especially here we find bats

with beautiful facial stripes,

and colored ears,

and they actually have large eyes

and don't look ugly at all.

But a bat is much more than

just a pretty face.

Sometimes when I set mesh nets

and bats fly in,

they bring a fruit with them

and drop them in the mesh net

and so I can tell what kind of

bat has taken what kind of fruit.

I know what this bat had for dinner.

Let's get it out of

the mesh net here.

This is a fruit of the dipteryx.

And the bat has carried the fruit

in its mouth when it was hit

into this net.

It turns out that the fate of

our majestic dipteryx

rests upon the soft wings of

a little bat.

Drawn by the scent of ripe fruit,

artibeus bats hover over

the tree's canopy.

Yet death lies in wait

among these boughs.

Luckily the bat's ability to

"see" in the dark

using sound not only pinpoints

the fruit,

it warns it of the hidden boa.

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