Cavechat.org

Good thing is wasn't straight out of a Marvel comic; we'd have to make a movie.

Bring on Alfred Hitchcock!

animals do not attack other animals (especially those larger than themselves) without provocation... although bats are predatory animals their main prey is much smaller than themselves...
Those guys MUST have done something to warrant the attack...

Ralph E. Powers wrote:Those guys MUST have done something to warrant the attack...

I must admit, trying to imagine what caused this attack is driving me BATTY.
I mean it's really BUGGING me.
Any solution I come up up with just does'nt seem to FLY!
Just the same, I'll give it a try...

Imagine: All these bats have stayed up all day partying. Thier illicit activities and lack of sleep have left them with conciderably impaired judgement and a serious case of the munchies.

Just then our two gentlemen happen to be strolling along under the bats "party tree" and walk directly into a thick swarm of fat, juicy mosquitos. Of cource the bats just cannot controll themselves and well, the rest is history.

Dare I say it? Maybe they were a couple of fruits.

Here's a slightly different account of the same incident, after they spoke with the 'bat attack victim' the following day...

Rotorua's 'Batman' jokes about close encounter

Mon, 2 Feb 2009

Rotorua's "Batman" is more like the Joker today as he laughs about his close encounter with hundreds of bats in the wee hours of the morning.

Bob Dowling was walking home from the pub about 3am with his mate Chris Harris, who was visiting from Invercargill, when he heard strange noises coming from some trees on Amohia Street.

"We saw all these funny looking birds, at least that's what we thought they were -- and then one of them dropped out of the tree on me and landed on my back, which gave me a fair bit of a fright.

"It clawed me a bit and then flew away," he told NZPA.

The 21-year-old then climbed the tree to take a closer look and hundreds of bats all flew to another tree.

But unlike DC's comic hero Batman, Mr Dowling and his boy wonder Mr Harris did not charge off to fight crime in the city's underworld -- rather they jumped in a taxi to beat a hasty retreat.

The bat did not leave a mark on Mr Dowling and he was pretty sure he would not have to visit the doctor for a rabies shot.

<snip>

Department of Conservation project manager for the Rotorua Lakes area office, Peter Corson, also said they did not know of any bats in the central city area - with the closest known ones about 20km out of the city.

"And certainly I've never heard of bats in New Zealand attacking people.

"I am cynical, but I wasn't there" he said.

Bats had an incredible ability to sense objects, even in the darkest of areas, and usually avoided them, he said.

New Zealand has two species of bats, the short-tail and the long tail, and both prefer big old forests areas to live in.

Neither species was known to have a taste for human flesh and the nearest vampire bats to Rotorua could be found in South America , Mr Corson said.

Full story here