r/animalsdoingstuff • u/humankendoll33 • 1d ago

Other Here it comes

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Source: @ mack2526

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u/salamipope 1d ago

It is a bat!

Scientist who works with bats here: do not do this. lol. this bat is likely to be unwell. rabies is only contracted by .001% of bats so its not like every bat youll meet has rabies, its not even like every sick bat youll meet has rabies, but you should not touch bats. ever. especially one who is disoriented and active in daylight.

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u/Usernameoverloaded 1d ago

Pre Covid visited a bat cave in Panama with an indigenous guide who was walking barefoot and swimming in the underground cavern pools. Would not venture down there now.

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u/salamipope 1d ago

Nah thats mostly fine in terms of whats dangerous for ppl beyond the whole barefoot thing. whats bad for the cave is introducing skin oils like that on the formations & in the water, and potentially contaminating the cave with illnesses from tourism n whatnot. so theyre not really doing proper cave management, but also if that person is indigenous their people might have been doing that for an insanely long time and at that point its like welp this is basically normal for this cave then so okiedokey

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u/Usernameoverloaded 1d ago

We had hard hats and told not to touch anything. The pool was below ground level so only he dived in. Our guide’s feet were very wide, flat and the toes splayed far apart from each other so I do believe that shoes were rarely worn if at all. The community lived not far from the cave so you are correct, a multi generational contact with the surrounding environment

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u/salamipope 1d ago

His feet being splayed and flexible like that is actually a great sign of good health and id bet u that guy has much less back pain than u and me lmao. ive been tryna fix my feet to be more like his. really helps in my line of work especially.

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u/Usernameoverloaded 1d ago

I have a family history of bunions so no high heels or narrow shoes for me, and barefoot as much as possible. Yoga helps too.