This bat is orange, and it's a new species altogether

Imagine an orange Batman! The caped crusader trying to instil fear in Gotham's underworld this way won't really cut it right? He's better off in his dark attire, just like bats.

This fixed idea of how bats are is precisely why an orange bat is making news everywhere. In addition to being orange in colour, this bat is fluffy. The scientists published their study of this bat in scientific journal American Museum Novitates on Wednesday. Turns out, this is a new species of bats altogether.

The scientists were on an expedition in West African country of Guinea when they stumbled upon this interesting species

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“It was kind of a life goal in a way, one that I never thought would happen,” said Jon Flanders, director of endangered species interventions at Bat Conservation International, a nonprofit organization based in Austin, Texas. “Every species is important, but you get drawn to the interesting-looking ones, and this one really is spectacular.”

Finding an altogether new species in wild is novel in times most new species are being discovered in laboratory experiments.

“This sort of situation where experienced researchers went out in the field and caught an animal and held it in their hand and went, ‘This is something we can’t identify,’ that’s much more unusual,” said Nancy Simmons, curator of mammals at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and chairwoman of the global bat taxonomy group at the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The new species of bats, named Myotis nimbaensis, lives in Guinea’s Nimba mountains.

The scientists, not wanting to jump to conclusion that this was a new species, compared the orange bat with known species already in scientific catalogues. But there was no match.

The expedition team then caught two bats again. A male and female.

Simmons then combed through the extensive bat collections at the American Museum of Natural History to compare the two specimens with known species, and she travelled to the Smithsonian National Museum in Washington, D.C., and the British Museum in London to do the same.

Genetic analysis showed that the orange bat was different from its closest relatives. This was a step in the direction to declare this to be a new species.

The bat does bear resemblance to more commonly found bats in a sense that it has black wings. But the considerable splash of orange is making this one talk of the town.

(With inputs from New York Times)