The annual bat count led to an unusual find in West Flanders this year. Volunteers checking the Atlantikwall Raversyde provincial domain in Ostend discovered an albino water bat. Nature organisation Natuurpunt says the animal was completely covered in white fur and displayed no colour pigment in its ears, snout or wings.
Last weekend a group of conservationists including the province of West Flanders's new official ecologist made an extraordinary discovery while bat counting. Among the black bats displaying their normal colouring a white water bat suddenly turned up on the Atlantikwall Raversyde provincial domain in Ostend.
All the animal’s fur is white and its wings, snout and ears have no colour pigment. More importantly, its eyes are red. ‘That means we are certain that it is an albino water bat,’ says Bart Opstaele, one of the volunteers who found the bat.
What is albinism?
Albinism is a genetic, and therefore congenital, disorder in which the body cannot produce melanin. This is the pigment that colours the skin, fur and eyes. Both humans and animals can be born with the defect.
Because water bats mainly live at night, the animal is hardly affected by its abnormality, according to yBart Opstaele. ‘Normally melanin also protects animals and humans against the ultraviolet rays from the sun, but a nocturnal animal is not affected by that,’ he notes. Its white fur doesn’t hamper it when it is out hunting either: ‘Its prey, including moths, flies and mosquitoes, cannot tell the difference between white or black fur’.
Such an exceptional find
‘We have been counting bats for almost 40 years, and this is the first time we have seen an albino animal. It really is an exceptional find,’ says Mr Opstaele.
The Raversijde district of Ostend is a rather unusual place to find bats. ‘Bats like to live near a forest, and the coast is not really blessed with all that much woodland. In Raversijde, you’ve got the Atlantic Wall, a remnant of the defences of the Second World War. Bats love to hibernate in the underground passages and bunkers.’
Atlantic Wall Raversyde is one of the best-preserved remnants of the World War II German defence line and includes more than 60 bunkers, open trenches and underground galleries, observation posts as well as artillery positions.
The bat-counting volunteer is only familiar with one other albino water bat that was found in Kapelle in the Netherlands about three years ago. ‘At the time, the finders couldn't check whether the animal had red eyes or not, so they were never certain whether it was an albino bat or not’.
Albino animals are quite the exception in Belgium. So far finds have been limited to an albino hedgehog, a squirrel, a small newt as well as a common toad.