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Now the title of this post may incur the wrath of the incorrect apostrophe use brigade, as I don’t know if I should have used an apostrophe or not. I suspect that  shouldn’t, but it didn’t look right without it.

About the picture itself it’s a fruit bat, or more specifically an example of a Pteropus Medius which was formally a resident of India before becoming an exhibit in the Horniman Museum in London. So bat fans, as I only have a picture of 5/8’s of a fruit bat here are 8 facts and only five of them are true. Can you guess which ones?

1. The “English” name of the pteropus medius is the wurbagool.
2. Fruit bats can’t land gracefully, and instead must crash into bushes or trees to come to a stop, or try to latch onto a branch as they pass by.
3. Fruit bats use echolocation to navigate.
4. Fruit bats don’t just eat fruit, they also eat flowers.
5. There are only 500 Livingstone Fruit Bats left in the world and Bristol Zoo are helping with the conservation efforts by capitively breeding them.
6. Fruit bats are the largest bat family, in terms of physical size (not number of species).
7. All members of the fruit bat family are considered endangered.
8. On average, Pteropus Vampyrus is the largest species. It’s wingspan of just under 6 feet (or approx 1.7 metres in new money).

Scroll down for the answers…

1. True.
2. True.
3. False, fruitbats do not use echolocation and actually have rather good eyesight.
4. True.
5. False, there are actually 1000 of them left. Bristol Zoo is involved with a programme to save them though.
6. True.
7. False. In 1989, 7 species of fruit bat were put on the CITES endangered list, the rest merely made it onto the threatened list.
8. True and it weighs about 1.5 kg (2.4lb).

… I would have screamed when this ran past my hand earlier.

Luckily I am not scared of spiders, I just dislike them (despite the useful role they provide in pest control) and so instead of screaming I reached for my camera - Once I’d got the photo though it was time to find a glass and a piece of paper to evict Boris the Spider. I’d usually treat my models with more courtesy, but then again my models don’t usually have 8 legs.

…Because this was the first thing I saw this morning when I woke up looking at the ceiling in my room and although the photo doesn’tconvey much of a sense of scale, it’s body was just under an inch long.

Don’t get me wrong I am not a big fan of spiders and I’d sooner not have this one in my room, but thanks to my father making me get spiders out of my siblings bedrooms I have kind of got used to them - Or at least catching them and releasing them outside.  This spider however must have been psychic as I left the room to get a glass to catch him in and by the time I came back he’d hidden himself.

Unfortunately as I won’t be able to get to a computer until Friday you’re all going to have to wait for the photos from last night a little longer. So until then here’s a picture of a dog…

Here’s the other new dog and this one has the ‘pleasure’ of being my brother’s dog and yes my brother is a cider drinker amongst other things. (He’ll drink pretty much anything!)

This afternoon as one of my housemates was visiting his parents I took the opportunity to grab a lift back to Calne and also visit family. I infamously return to my hometown as briefly and infrequently as possible and so when I return it’s always interesting to see what’s new - This time around it was two new dogs.

Growing up my Dad has always had a dog and I have put photos of his current dog Bella, on here previously. Now however technically* everyone in the house has their own dog. Unlike Bella these dogs aren’t as well mannered for the camera, Bella is suitably nonchatlant if a camera is pointed at her. The same cannot be said for Misty (pictured above) I managed to get her to sit down in front of me. However, as soon as I raised the camera she’d decide to jump up and try licking the lens meaning that the photo above is the best result I got, although I have to concede that it is not totally unpleasant.

*I say technically as whilst my step mother choose a dog for herself it seems to pretty much follow my Dad around.