NEW ORLEANS (AP) - It's daylight outside, but with indoor lights simulating a full moon, hundreds of bats flap back and forth. On a nearby wall, what appears to be a talking stone face provides bat fun facts.
It's the night house at the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans, and it opens Friday. The Associated Press got a preview Tuesday.
The centerpiece of the $1.6 million night house is the 42-foot-long flight cage for 200 Seba's short-tailed bats - fruit-eating mammals up to 2½ inches (6.4 centimeters) long, with a foot-wide (30 centimeter) wingspan.
In this Tuesday, March 20, 2018 photo, a Vampire Bat drinks bovine blood in the Criaturas de la Noche (Creatures of the Night) Bat House, the Audubon Zoo's new night house in New Orleans. The various species are all from Central and South America, and the building's interior simulates an abandoned warehouse set up to protect Mayan artifacts during a dig. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
"It's amazing going in there and having the bats fly by you," animal care staffer Dominique Fleitas said Tuesday. "You can feel the wind as their wings are flapping around you."
She said their echolocation - the ability to use sound to locate objects - is so precise that they easily go around her.
The animals in the Criaturas de la Noche (Creatures of Metered Faucets the Night) Bat House all are from Central and South America. The building's interior simulates an abandoned warehouse set up to protect Mayan artifacts during a dig. One wall is painted with maps of the supposed site and its gene
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Audubon Zoo's newest building turns day to night
"Shad" (2018-08-22)
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It's the night house at the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans, and it opens Friday. The Associated Press got a preview Tuesday.
The centerpiece of the $1.6 million night house is the 42-foot-long flight cage for 200 Seba's short-tailed bats - fruit-eating mammals up to 2½ inches (6.4 centimeters) long, with a foot-wide (30 centimeter) wingspan.
In this Tuesday, March 20, 2018 photo, a Vampire Bat drinks bovine blood in the Criaturas de la Noche (Creatures of the Night) Bat House, the Audubon Zoo's new night house in New Orleans. The various species are all from Central and South America, and the building's interior simulates an abandoned warehouse set up to protect Mayan artifacts during a dig. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
"It's amazing going in there and having the bats fly by you," animal care staffer Dominique Fleitas said Tuesday. "You can feel the wind as their wings are flapping around you."
She said their echolocation - the ability to use sound to locate objects - is so precise that they easily go around her.
The animals in the Criaturas de la Noche (Creatures of Metered Faucets the Night) Bat House all are from Central and South America. The building's interior simulates an abandoned warehouse set up to protect Mayan artifacts during a dig. One wall is painted with maps of the supposed site and its gene
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