Watch a very cute bat gobble up a banana

Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/07/10/watch-a-very-cute-bat-gobble-u.html

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You have violated the Ancient Banana Law of BoingBoing. If you mention a banana, you must include the phrase “Just look at it!”

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I like when it stops eating there for a minute, with its mouth overfull. He notices he’s being looked at, and says "What?"

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Pretty chill bat for just being in the wild one minute and then wham!, in the hands of humans the next.

Oh, and just because bananas:

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Sky puppy! :heart_eyes:

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People don’t believe me when I say my dog looks exactly like a fruit bat, but she does. If I shaved her ears she could fool anyone. (not that I ever would).

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I demand a picture posthaste!

I mean, not of the ear shaving. Just the dog.

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I’m a big sucker for little cute animals eating fruits and veggies…but we always anthropomorphize their “emotions” . that cute little bat is likely not very happy and is feeling threatened and is liable to bite that lady’s finger for getting in the way of the banana. :frowning:

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I’m like that way also. Woe betide anyone who gets between me and my banana.

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the last bite is totally Billy Ray Valentine .

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What a pleasantly innocent and literal example of biting off more than you can chew.

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Yeah, it’s easy to see it wrapped up in a blanket like that munching on fruit and think that it must feel contented and secure.

But I will say that if I had access to these sorts of videos when I was a kid I probably wouldn’t have been as repelled by them as I was.

Although my appreciation for them jumped immensely long before YouTube was around when I personally witnessed one running across a baseball diamond as I chased it thinking it was a rabbit. Imagine my shock and confusion when that rabbit leapt into the air and flew away

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Bats for me occupy this weird place on the boundary between cute and creepy.

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Ya gotta get to know the bat.

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Although it’s also possible that animals are capable of emotions that map to our own human emotion, which seems to be validated by numerous examples, and most pet owners and/or people who work with animals for a living can testify to. It’s not so black and white IMO – sometimes animals have emotional responses, sometimes these map to our own, sometimes we are able to perceive them semi-accurately. But the notion that animals aren’t capable of emotional responses, and/or are never capable of sharing said emotions with humans? Nope, don’t buy it.

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I found a bat once. He was doing a yoga pose lying on his back with his feet over his head. Coworker found him and thought he was dead.

I saw it wasn’t dead, got two sticks and lifted him from the middle of the circle driveway onto the side walk. I then went inside to get box and some heavy gloves and look up a place for bats. When I came back out he had flipped back over the right way. He made some sounds at one point. I just watched him for a little bit and then he flew away.

I dunno if he ran into something or why he was lying in the middle of the road and acting weird. Seemed dazed. But he left on his own so that’s good.

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:wink:

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If anything, emotions are much more likely to be common between humans and other mammals than any kind of cognition. Emotions come from old structures in the hindbrain and relate very closely to the drives an individual has for survival. So it only makes sense that there might be some emotions in common. Thoughts, probably not very similar, but emotions? Those are quite ancient indeed.

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a banana story from…yes, queensland

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That was the fabled Rabbat!

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