• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Beautiful Orange Bat Being Sold On Etsy and eBay Faces Uncertain Future

July 17, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

The animal kingdom is full of spectacularly colored creatures. From bright blue tarantulas to the stripes and spots on a tiger cat,  just about every kind of pattern and hue can be found somewhere. Problems arise, however, when those who admire these bright colors want a closer look. Research has revealed that a bat species in Asia is under threat due to its popularity as a decorative ornament. 

Advertisement

The painted wooly bat (Kerivoula picta) is a striking species with bright orange fur and patterned wings. On popular online shopping sites like Etsy and eBay, dead bats can be bought as display items with their wings outstretched. The researchers looked at 856 general bat listings and found 215 of them were for the painted wooly bats, representing 284 individual animals.

Examples of bats for sale on the online website, displayed in frames or even as wearable accessories.

Just some examples of the bats for sale on eBay and Etsy.

Image credit: Coleman, J, L., et al Journal of European Journal of Wildlife Research (2024)

“These bats are not from the United States, but they’re being sourced from across Asia and then brought here and used as décor,” co-leading author Nistara Randhawa, a UC Davis data scientist and epidemiologist, said in a statement. “With this study, we hope to raise awareness and propel the conservation of this species.” 

What makes the bats especially vulnerable to this kind of human actively is their slow life history. The adults live around 10 years and produce just one offspring at a time. In the wild they are found across Asia, where their bright orange fur acts as camouflage against the dried leaves where they roost. The IUCN Red List has them under the Near Threatened bracket but suggests there have been insufficient surveys. 

The team also explored the influence of Halloween on the bat sales. They found that Tennessee sold more bats than any other state between the 2022 Halloween and Christmas periods. Around 20 percent of the sales listings used words such as “ethical” or “sustainable” with some sellers even claiming the bats had been bred in captivity and died under normal circumstances – all claims that the authors strongly suspect to be false.

“We’re talking about 284 distinct individuals found over just a three-month period,” said co-leading author Joanna Coleman, an assistant professor at CUNY-Queens College and co-chair of the IUCN’s Bat Trade Working Group. “That doesn’t include all the others sold on websites and physical shops year-round across the world. Because these bats are quite scarce on landscapes, we are concerned that hunters might be systematically going out and removing every individual they see.”

Advertisement

The authors suggest that the painted wooly bat be included under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which would prohibit any international trade. They further suggest more fieldwork studies to better understand the population remaining in the wild. 

“Bat populations are declining worldwide, and K. picta is but one of the many unique bat species affected by ongoing global biodiversity loss,” Randhawa said. “They are incredibly important to protect, not least because of the vital ecosystem services bats provide. K. picta should be roosting under the banana leaves of its natural habitat, not hanging dead on a wall as décor.” 

The study is published in The European Journal of Wildlife Research.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. China vehicle sales slid 18% in August – industry body
  2. Fed’s Powell: Reopening economic bottlenecks could be “more enduring”
  3. The World’s Oldest Bottle Of Wine Might Actually Be Safe To Drink
  4. How Coffee Could Protect Against Alzheimer’s: Espresso Found To Inhibit Tau Proteins

Source Link: Beautiful Orange Bat Being Sold On Etsy and eBay Faces Uncertain Future

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • New Nimbus COVID Variant Present In The UK, Infections Could Spread This Summer
  • Scientists Have Finally Measured How Fast Quantum Entanglement Happens
  • Why Earth’s Magnetic Pole Reversals Are So Fascinating
  • World First Artificial Solar Eclipse Created, The “Closest Thing” To HIV Vaccine Gets FDA Approval, And Much More This Week
  • “Remarkable” Pattern Discovered Behind Prime Numbers, Math’s Most Unpredictable Objects
  • People Are Only Just Learning What The World’s Most Expensive Cheese Is Made Of
  • The Physics Behind Iron: Why It’s The Most Stable Element
  • What Is The Reason Some People Keep Waking Up At 3am Every Night?
  • Michigan Bear Finally Free After 2 Years With Plastic Lid Stuck Around Its Neck
  • Pangolins, The World’s Most Trafficked Mammal, May Soon Get Federal Protection In The US
  • Sharks Have No Bones, So How Do They Get So Big?
  • 2025 Is Shaping Up To Be A Whirlwind Year For Tornadoes In The US
  • Unexpected Nova Just Appeared In The Night Sky – And You Can See It With The Naked Eye
  • Watch As Maori Octopus Decides Eating A Ray Is A Good Idea
  • There Is Life Hiding In The Earth’s Deep Biosphere, But Not As You Know It
  • Two Sandhill Cranes Have Adopted A Canada Gosling, And It’s Ridiculously Adorable
  • Hybrid Pythons Are Taking Over The Florida Everglades With “Hybrid Vigor”
  • Mysterious, Powerful Radio Pulse Traced Back To NASA Satellite That’s Been Dead Since 1967
  • This Is The Best (And Worst) Sleep Position
  • Artificial Eclipse, Dancing Dinosaurs, And 50 Years Of “JAWS”
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version