Vampire bats!!! by Kimberly Williams-Guillen

To my knowledge, the first gigapan in a bat cave. (Considering how it came out, it might be the last one, too!) These are members of a colony of common vampire bats (Desmodus rotundus) in a small lava tube cave found on Nicaragua's Masaya Volcano. Entering into the cave and using a flash camera was somewhat disruptive to the bats and they became more dispersed than they usually are (there are many more bats in the cave) although it seems to me that there are fewer bats than the last time I entered in the cave (www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBmwW1P23g8 ).This gigapan was quite challenging, since I couldn't focus manually (because it was, like, dark and stuff) but then the autofocus didn't work so great, and the flash on the point and shoot camera was not up to the job. I have an IR-sensitive camera and IR light that I use for filming bats, it has the capacity to take stills but unfortunately it would not fit onto the basic Gigapan model. However, I would like to try this again with an IR sensitive camera and/or an SLR with more flash capacity. It could be a great tool for monitoring the numbers of bats in a roost over time, and using an IR camera would be much less disruptive to the bats.