Today I learned that the university of Coimbra in Portugal has
a great 18th-century library, the Biblioteca Joanina, that maintains a colony of bats to effectively control the population of paper-eating insects called
papirófagos.
These bats are less than an inch long. They roost during the day behind the bookcases and come out at night. There doesn’t seem to be any English word for
papirófago, a cursory search turns up no details about what sort of insect they are, and ngl I am slightly concerned about them as a phenomenon. But I think my overarching point here is clear:
This library keeps tiny bats that look after the books.
I’m here for tiny bats saving books.
Aaaahhh!!
What good and noble tiny flitters!!!! ❤
My nayme is Batt And wen its nite On sylente wings I flye to fite
when they’re cleaning their feets and spread all their little toes out
when they smelled something weird and make a stinky face
when they walk up to you making little chirpy purrs of inquiry
when they get distracted by a noise mid-lick and a tongue blep occurs
when they see a bird and do that ekekekk thing
when they become possessed by the devil and tear around the house with demonic speed and then pause mid-vicious-attack of a scratching pole to whip their head around and fix you with their all-pupil stare of unhinged terror
thefallendream 