They look a little bit like a mouse with wings; a little lump of dense fur with a face that only a mother could love, in the middle of an 27-centimetre wingspan. They're not the most beautiful creatures, but they're weirdly charming little monsters that could fit in the palm of your hand and weigh about as much as a pen.
We're talking about microbats - the threatened and elusive species of tiny bats that are known to live in the Hunter and have popped up in the news again recently after a roosts were discovered in the sandstone culvets that surround the Singleton bypass.
The NSW government published its environmental review for the bypass build back in 2019, which noted that there were at least one known and five other potential roosts for the little bats that mostly eat insects. Last week the government revealed its management plan to keep the local population safe.
There are thought to be about 77 species of bat in Australia, 60 of which are microbats. In the Hunter and Central Coast we have two species of flying fox and around 24 species of microbat.
But despite the micro varieties being listed as a threatened species since 2016, locals could be forgiven for not immediately falling in love with bats given the reign of batty terror that their bigger and more destructive cousins have wrought around Singleton for years.
To be clear, microbats are the weirdly cute, threatened species that we must protect at all costs (they can eat half their body weight in mozzies, among other cool talents, so we like them a lot). Flying foxes, on the other hand, have more of a problem-child reputation.
About a decade ago, Singleton locals will surely remember with a shudder, an estimated 12,000 flying foxes moved into the treetops of Burdekin Park and laid waste to the place. Sensationally, the bats at one stage forced the town's Anzac Day ceremonies out of the park over the shrieking cacophony as council desperately employed a barrage of measures to try to control the population.
Many hoped that a two-decade effort to rid the flying mammals from the town centre had paid off when they took up home at Rose Point Park near the Hunter river, but after storms destroyed part of their new habitat in 2022, it appeared the flying foxes had moved back into town last year (though mercifully in apparently smaller numbers).
Singleton mayor Sue Moore told the Newcastle Herald last year that there was little the council could do but accept their return.
"The bats have won," she conceded at the time.
After years of strategies, which have included water cannons and the broadcast of high-pitched frequencies, the bats will now be managed in accordance with the council's flying fox management strategy.
Microbats, on the other hand, appear to be far more elusive than their rowdy distant relatives. In fact, most people have never seen the animals, some of which weigh less than three grams. But years of habitat loss have meant that many varieties of microbats are now threatened or endangered.
The pair of species living near the bypass project have been identified as the southern myotis, or fishing bat, and the large bent-wing bat. The roost in tree hollows, caves or mines, and culvets close to the water where the fishing variety are known to eat aqauric insects and small fish.
They fly close to the surface of rainforest streams or large lakes and reservoirs and rake the water with the curved claws on their large feet. The bent-wings feed mostly on moths and other flying insects and can roost in huge nursery colonies of up to 3000 babies in a square metre of ceiling.
In a statement on February 27, the state's transport department said it had developed a mangement plan for the habitats around the bypass that meant the tiny inhabitants "won't have to find a new 'fur-ever' home"
Department director Anna Zycki said the plan contains various mitigations that the team will implement to minimise the noise and vibration impacts to the microbats and their habitat during construction.
