Uploaded October 2023 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Australia is home to an incredible diversity of bat species – they make up about one in four of Australia’s native land mammals – and they live fascinating lives. The large, pollen and fruit-eating flying foxes are familiar even in our biggest cities, but few people would have encountered the Ghost Bat, an endangered ambush predator which hunts small mammals, reptiles and birds.
Oli Aylen is an ecologist and bat researcher whose work has taken him around the world, from the cloud-forests of Costa Rica to the jungles of Borneo. Now he’s embarking on a PhD looking at bats in the Australian arid zone, and whether the presence of large-scale conservation reserves is having an effect. Oli was the 2022 recipient of an Ecological Society of Australia grant awarded in support of this project.
Australia is home to an incredible diversity of bat species – they make up about one in four of Australia’s native land mammals – and they live fascinating lives. The large, pollen and fruit-eating flying foxes are familiar even in our biggest cities, but few people would have encountered the Ghost Bat, an endangered ambush predator which hunts small mammals, reptiles and birds.
Oli Aylen is an ecologist and bat researcher whose work has taken him around the world, from the cloud-forests of Costa Rica to the jungles of Borneo. Now he’s embarking on a PhD looking at bats in the Australian arid zone, and whether the presence of large-scale conservation reserves is having an effect. Oli was the 2022 recipient of an Ecological Society of Australia grant awarded in support of this project.
