A Rare And Adorable Bat Found At a UK Library Museum

The Museum of English Rural Life (the Absolute Unit museum) found a bat late last year in a library. They detailed its identification, background and future plans to release it.

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  • 01
    Text - The Museum of English Rural Life Follow @TheMERL So, we found a live bat in our rare book store. a thread 5:25 AM - 24 Feb 2019 7,448 Retweets 17,657 Likes
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  • 02
    Text - MThe Museum of English Rural Life Follow @THEMERL We have a big, boring box with lots of fun, rare historic archives and books in it. It's so boring on the outside we don't have an image on file. But it is very exciting on the inside. 5:25 AM - 24 Feb 2019 MUELLER 71 Retweets 1,947 Likes
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  • 03
    Text - MThe Museum of English Rural Life Follow @THEMERL It's where we keep the Ladybird Books Archive, medieval manuscripts, our children's book collection, the WH Smith archive it's a treasure trove. Full of lovely, lovely books. 5:26 AM - 24 Feb 2019 55 Retweets 1,864 Likes
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  • 04
    Text - The Museum of English Rural Life M Follow @TheMERL Do you know what's not a book? 5:26 AM - 24 Feb 2019 141 Retweets 1,914 Likes
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  • 05
    Text - The Museum of English Rural Life Follow @TheMERL A BAT 5:27 AM 24 Feb 2019 702 Retweets 6,423 Likes
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  • 06
    Text - The Museum of English Rural Life Follow @TheMERL Bats can't even get library cards 5:27 AM - 24 Feb 2019 702 Retweets 4,685 Likes
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  • 07
    MThe Museum of English Rural Life Follow @TheMERL But here he is, chilling above a fire exit he can't even open.
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  • 08
    Text - MThe Museum of English Rural Life Follow @TheMERL He got through a tiny hole to begin with (which we're plugging) but the hole was so tiny that our bat couldn't find the exit, like a bewildered father in IKEA. 5:29 AM - 24 Feb 2019 313 Retweets 7,476 Likes
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  • 09
    Text - MThe Museum of English Rural Life Follow @TheMERL The bat signal was lit. 5:29 AM 24 Feb 2019 108 Retweets 2,749 Likes
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  • 10
    Text - MThe Museum of English Rural Life Follow @THEMERL (the bat signal is a librarian out of their depth screaming there is a BAT in the LIBRARY down the corridor) 5:29 AM 24 Feb 2019 377 Retweets 6,592 Likes GO
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  • 11
    Text - MThe Museum of English Rural Life Follow @TheMERL Because the universe is weird, though, one of our volunteers and former @UniRdg_Library librarian also looks after bats in her spare time. 5:30 AM - 24 Feb 2019 107 Retweets 4,153 Likes
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  • 12
    Text - M The Museum of English Rural Life T Follow @TheMERL Seriously, she saves bats and nurses them back to health in a spare room and then releases them back into the wild. Our team is full of secret X Men. 5:30 AM - 24 Feb 2019 n stireh 116 Retweets 4,989 Likes
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  • 13
    Ear - MThe Museum of English Rural Life Follow @TheMERL Here's our bat. 5:31 AM - 24 Feb 2019 332 Retweets 6,401 Likes
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  • 14
    Text - The Museum of English Rural Life Follow @TheMERL I HAVE HAD A VERY LONG DAY... IAM VERY SMALL AND I HAVE NO ONEY SO YOU CAN IMAGINE THE KIND OF STRESS I AM UNDER 5:31 AM - 24 Feb 2019 2,883 Retweets 12,524 Likes voble
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  • 15
    Text - MThe Museum of English Rural Life Follow @TheMERL First things first is to check the gonads, which confirmed the bat is a boy. Male bat genitalia look like, and we quote, 'an albino hedgehog' #NSFW
    via TheMERL
  • 16
    Text - MThe Museum of English Rural Life Follow @TheMERL We thought the bat was a type of pipistrelle, and after examining the ratio of forearm to 5th finger, and wing venation, it turns out to be a Nathusius' pipistrelle. 5:33 AM 24 Feb 2019
    via TheMERL
  • 17
    Text - The Museum of English Rural Life M Follow @TheMERL This is very cool, as the species has only recently started migrating to Britain. They've previously travelled from the Baltic to settle in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium or France.
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  • 18
    Text - MThe Museum of English Rural Life Follow @THEMERL We've named the bat MERLin (..) He is helping a current project capturing and ringing Nathusius' pipistrelles, so we can learn more about their migratory habits. 5:34 AM - 24 Feb 2019 81 Retweets 3,546 Likes
    via TheMERL
  • 19
    Text - The Museum of English Rural Life Follow @TheMERL The latest update on Merlin is that: it took him ages to get the hang of self feeding but there's no stopping him now so he's put on rather a lot of weight and needs a bit more flying practice before we can release him. 5:36 AM - 24 Feb 2019 107 Retweets 3,335 Likes >
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