Oh, sure, the Western scientific community calls this species the “New Zealand lesser short-tailed bat,” but I think we can all agree that the Māori name is much better, especially since you can then call it a pekapeka for short.
Pekapeka. God, I’m so happy.
Scientific name: Mystacina tuberculata. Sadly this was the only creative commons image of the pekapeka I could find, so I’ll ask you to use your imagination for the rest of the article.
Ok, so what’s there to distinguish the pekapeka from the hundreds and hundreds of other tiny insect-eating bats? Well, for starters, they’re one of only three mammal species native to New Zealand. Second, they spend roughly 30% of their foraging time not flying, but walking on the ground.
If that doesn’t sound impressive to you, you clearly don’t understand how much bats suck at walking. Imagine a seal, right? Sleek and beautiful under the water, pudgy-ground humping wobblers on land. Same deal for the bat, only replace the water with the air.
Essentially a bat. (Photo by Andreas Trepte.)
True, there are a few other bat species that are also good at walking, most notably the common vampire bat, which can not only walk but hop and run. But in terms of phylogeny the vampire bat is like a million light years removed from the pekapeka, which is more closely related to the not-so-great-at-the-walking-thing ghost-faced and mustache bats. And unlike the vampire bat, which uses its walking as a stealth maneuver to sidle up to sleeping hosts and give ’em a lil love bite, the pekapeka doesn’t drink blood.
No, the pekapeka may spend time on the ground for other reasons entirely. Remember, it lives in New Zealand, where there are only two other species of mammals (both bats) and no snakes, which means there are next to no terrestrial predators. New Zealand is also home to a lot of birds… and a lot of flightless birds, like the kiwi.
Could the pekapeka be on its way to being the first species of flightless bat?
Well, not if we drive it to extinction first, but I’m getting ahead of myself here.
