With at least 109 species, India has an incredible diversity of bats. This includes one of the largest in the world, the Indian flying fox (Pteropus giganteus); one of the most colourful, the orange and black painted bat (Kerivoula picta); and one of the rarest, Salim Ali’s fruit bat (Latidens salimalii).

Know more about these wonderful mammals from Rohit Chakravarty and Baheerathan M, as they shed light on the behavioural traits of bats like flying foxes, in a conversation with our faculty Monica Kaushik.

Nature does not merely exist in the forest, but it abounds all around us, even in our cities. To explore and discuss flora and fauna in our vicinity, Azim Premji University brings you a Webinar series Seeking Sustainability: Nature in our Cities.

The webinar is part of the overall Seeking Sustainability umbrella. The series will be of particular interest to people who wish to know more about the environment and urban ecology.

About the Speakers

Rohit Chakravarty is a bat researcher, currently doing his PhD at the Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin, Germany. Over the past eight years, he has studied bats in the Andaman Islands and in Uttarakhand. He is also a co-author of the book, ​‘Naturalist’s Guide to the Mammals of India’.

Baheerathan M has completed his PhD in visual ecology of pteropodid bats of southern India from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Thiruvananthapuram. He has been working with the fruit bats of southern India for the past eight years — with a focus on the behaviour, neuroethology, and sensory and movement ecology of fruit bats. Baheerathan is also the Co-Founder and Research Officer at VAAVAL-Centre for Indian Bat Research on Ecosystem Sustainability. 

About the Moderator

Monica Kaushik is a faculty member at Azim Premji University and an ecologist studying bird communities in different habitats, including urban green spaces of Dehradun, Uttarakhand. 

Her research interests include the impacts of biological invasions on mutualistic interactions between birds and plants. For example, seed dispersal. She has taught for three years (2019−2022) at the School of Human Ecology, Ambedkar University Delhi as a visiting faculty. She has received a doctoral degree in Wildlife Science from the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Saurashtra University, Gujarat.