A colony of bats from the species Furipterus horrens set a nest under the roof of one of the rooms at the Selva Verde Lodge in Chilamate de Sarapiquí, Heredia.

This species of bat had not been seen in Costa Rica for more than 45 years and in fact there are not many left worldwide.

One of the bungalow type rooms at this hotel was the place picked by  close to 80 bats who set their nest; the hotel owners chose not to bother their new guests and have not been renting the room out.

“This is great news, because this species was going to be declared as disappeared in the country. In fact this species of bats is uncommon and not well known”, explained Bernal Rodriguez, professor at the Biology School of the University of Costa Rica .

Rodriguez was one of the biologists contacted by the owners of the hotel to confirm the type of bat that they were dealing with.

Apparently one of the employees at Selva Verde had worked in the past with Rodríguez, he saw the bats, which have the particularity that their wing covers part of their big thumb, this gives them the popular name of “thumbless bat”.

This small bat forages for insects, they are patchily distributed in Central America and northern South America. In Costa Rica the first time they were spotted was back in 1973, and Richard LaVal a North American man who dedicate his life to the study of this species found in Costa Rica more than 59 occupying a hollow log.

In the world there are more than 1200 species of bats; while in Costa Rica you can find 115.