At around 1 m above sea level, the temperature drops at night, and by 000 p.m. the research team, made up of ecologists from Dahari and students from the University of Comoros, are already wearing sweaters. To be honest, the coolness is a real relief compared to the temperatures we experience in the city during the day – the rainy season here in Anjouan is hot and humid!

That night we pitched our tents on a plateau north of the village of Adda, close to an important resting and feeding site for Livingstone's bats, one of the rarest and most largest bats in the world. They are the reason for our presence here: Dahari and the University of the Comoros have launched a research project to find out where bats go, what they eat and how they use their habitat, with the ultimate aim of find better ways to protect them from extinction.

Bats are threatened by the destruction of the forest, their natural habitat. They rely on tall trees in forested areas for roosting during the day. A roost site may consist of several trees and is important for social contact and undisturbed rest. We know where all the major roosts are on the island of Anjouan, and Dahari is working hard with local landowners to protect these trees. However, roost sites are not the only areas to protect: feeding sites are also key sites. But as very little knowledge exists about where, when and what Livingstone's bats eat, we therefore launched, with the support of the CEPF and Rufford Foundation, the first GPS tracking study of these bats!

Disappearance of the forest

In addition to identifying foraging sites, we plan to better understand how bats manage the fragmented landscape. In Anjouan, very little natural forest remains and forest fragments are often located on steep slopes and very far apart. Fortunately for them, large bats can travel long distances. Fields and plantations also still offer a few trees for a tired bat, but previous research has actually shown that bats generally don't like to stay in open spaces – we'll see how bats of Livingstone are doing well here in the Comoros.

In January and February 2019, we attached GPS collars to two individuals: a female and a male. GPS tags record their movements in great detail and also provide us with information on how fast the animal is moving when the points are taken. However, with a slight difficulty: you have to find the bats to download the tag data! So, during the first two weeks following the installation of the GPS, the team spent its time looking for bats around Adda, Outsa, Ouzini and even Moya... Fortunately, we found them at the end of a few days and the first data we have already tells us where they like to spend their days, which has helped a lot. Now you just have to go to their favorite dorms during the day to be able to download the data.

GPS collars are lightweight and these giant bats can wear them easily. The necklaces weigh 20g each; knowing that the average weight of a bat is 630 g, they pose no problem to animals. Additionally, we designed them so that they fall off on their own after about six to eight weeks. This will leave the bats without any trace and we can then, hopefully, recover the GPS tags and reuse them later.

Identify feeding sites

These two bats are very active individuals and, within the first week, Dahari was able to include places they visited frequently in the crowdsourced monitoring project. The next step is to identify feeding sites (the ecology team will need to go into the field again to find out the arboreal species).

During this time, the bats will be flying and as long as the battery lasts on the GPS tags, they will continue to give us more information about their lives... We can't wait to discover their next destination!