Wendy White, South Africa

"We have mealworms but we have to breed most of them ourselves. There is no bulk mealworm supplier that we know of in the country. We have one lady upcountry that breeds finches & koi & has surplus mealworms, she manages to send us around 8,000 a month for 9 - 10 months of the year to supplement what we breed ourselves, with this we just about get by. 

The big problem at this time of the year is that every mealworm in the country takes it into its head to pupate at the same time - usually about a month before flying ant season. At this and other lean times our bats have to eat a mixture called "bat gloop" which consists of finely-chopped hard-boiled egg, brown bread crumbs, and cream cheese. Most bats like the taste of it which is just as well; we try not to get into a situation where we have to feed only gloop, as soon as we see mealworm numbers dropping we substitute gloop for a part of the mealworm ration.

You will also, about 7pm on some warm spring evenings, observe a strange species of gibbering human that drops everything & runs around scrabbling on the ground & walls under lights hysterically calling "quick, quick flying ants". These are known as South African bat rehabbers. We pray for good swarms of flying ants because the bats love them, they freeze very well and can be rationed out a few at a time to each bat to supplement the gloop. 

The endangered Large-eared free-tailed bat Otomops martiensseni is
munching on a flying ant. Otomops are red book listed in South Africa because they are only found in a few domestic house roofs in the greater Durban Area. MacKenzie was found bruised and battered in a roadside gutter with most of her left wing torn off. After a shaky start and a couple of crises she is now in good health. 

For 3-4 months in summer we have enough mealworms but certainly never a surplus that we could freeze for making blended mixture. Every worm is precious & each bat gets its ration counted out in a separate bowl. 

We continually enlarge our mealworm colonies and have a network of kind
people who hold small colonies for us. But we do a lot of educational work & the more well known the bat group becomes the more bats come in & the more mealworms we need. We are all backyard & spare room rehabbers, and mealworm colonies take up a lot of space, they also take up a surprising amount of time to manage, especially here in Durban where it is very humid & we have to be very careful not to let the medium go moldy or get infested with mites. 

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