Absolutely tiny unit
February 24, 2019 7:09 AM   Subscribe

Everybody's favorite rural life museum is awwwwww at the size of this lad.

And a blog post about the MERL's unexpected tiny bookish visitor.
posted by drlith (18 comments total) 29 users marked this as a favorite
 
Awwwww. I love bats. What a happy coincidence that one of the librarians was also a bat-nurse.

(But why is the first step to check the gonads?)
posted by ejs at 7:33 AM on February 24, 2019 [2 favorites]


(But why is the first step to check the gonads?)

This has always been my rule of thumb whenever meeting someone new. Is this... I mean... do other people do differently?
posted by slkinsey at 7:37 AM on February 24, 2019 [19 favorites]


"I have had a very long day... I am very small and I have no money so you can imagine the kind of stress I am under" is my new motto
posted by moonmilk at 7:52 AM on February 24, 2019 [32 favorites]


Re: checking for gonads. In the rescue work I’ve done, quickly ruling out that a mammal might be a nursing female means I’m not going be searching for babies before removing the animal to a safer area.

I’m not sure about rescuing bats on site, though, because I’ve only fostered baby bats found by other rescuers.

Loved this post! Just what I needed today, and I’m now following the MERL.
posted by Nancy_LockIsLit_Palmer at 8:18 AM on February 24, 2019 [11 favorites]


moonmilk: your new motto is from John Mulaney
posted by artychoke at 8:22 AM on February 24, 2019 [6 favorites]


Metafilter: we're going to write helping smol furry flappers into our mission statement
posted by bile and syntax at 9:03 AM on February 24, 2019 [9 favorites]


he's an absolute fraction
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 9:24 AM on February 24, 2019 [22 favorites]


Bats are all well and cute until you're sitting in the emergency room getting rabies IG injected subdermal all over your limbs
posted by Ferreous at 9:55 AM on February 24, 2019 [2 favorites]


"Bats can't even get library cards."

An injustice!
posted by Emmy Rae at 10:05 AM on February 24, 2019 [2 favorites]


Maybe he read the book...
posted by puffyn at 10:32 AM on February 24, 2019 [1 favorite]


They really should call the Bat Action Trust. They have a 24-hour bat helpline. After hours, the calls are directed to bat volunteers, so there's no excuse.
posted by Naberius at 11:03 AM on February 24, 2019 [3 favorites]


It blows my mind every time I read a tweet from the museum here sooner than I spot it elsewhere: this isn't the first time it's happened.

Context: I know the guy who writes their tweets: he used to be the social media officer in a team I'm in. I had lunch with him on Tuesday.

But I don't really post much attention to Twitter. So it trips me up every time Metafilter makes my social connections come full-circle.
posted by avapoet at 12:06 PM on February 24, 2019 [1 favorite]


They really should call the Bat Action Trust. They have a 24-hour bat helpline. After hours, the calls are directed to bat volunteers, so there's no excuse.
If you read the second link, they did call the Bat Action Trust hotline. They also provide the number for it, in case someone else needs it.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 12:23 PM on February 24, 2019 [5 favorites]


smol bat is smol
posted by SansPoint at 12:45 PM on February 24, 2019 [6 favorites]


they did call the Bat Action Trust hotline

*cough* (Naberius is citing an episode of The Detectorists)
posted by mwhybark at 1:39 PM on February 24, 2019


The tubby bugger!
posted by Fuchsoid at 3:40 PM on February 24, 2019 [2 favorites]


I’ve had occasion to evict bats which have found their way into my apartment on several occasions. If I can’t encourage them to fly out an open door or window, then I wait until they’ve settled down somewhere, scoop them into a shoebox, and carry them outside.

They’re so tiny and fragile looking that I’m always afraid to handle them the way they show in the linked pictures for fear of hurting them. I imagine they have the experience to know how to do so safely.
posted by tdismukes at 6:38 AM on February 25, 2019


Living in Central Texas, I've had it beat into me since childhood that you Never Touch a Bat. Otherwise, you are either going to die of rabies or want to die from the prophylaxis. From a cursory Google, I see that's not much of a problem in England?
posted by fiercecupcake at 1:00 PM on February 25, 2019


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