Meet the unbearably cute patients at this one-of-a-kind hospital for bats

[douglas9]

FAR NORTH QUEENSLAND, Australia — Australia is famously a place with some of the world’s most dangerous and frightening animals. Venomous spiders. Deadly snakes. Jellyfish with fatal stings.

But it is also home to one of the world’s cutest: the flying fox, also known as the giant fruit bat. I mean, look at this animal.

This is a baby bat taking a bubble bath. If it doesn’t melt your heart, nothing will.

In northeastern Australia, not far from the coastal city of Cairns, is a place called Tolga Bat Hospital. It is, as its name suggests, a hospital for bats — one of the only such facilities on the planet. And it’s also one of the few places you can see a baby bat getting a bubble bath.

The hospital, which has just one full-time paid employee but a cadre of volunteers, has been treating bats for more than 30 years. It comprises a few small buildings with treatment rooms, cold storage for fruit, and a nursery for orphan bats, as well as several outdoor wire enclosures. The largest cage is akin to a long-term care facility; it’s for bats that can no longer fly and will live out their lives at the hospital.

https://www.vox.com/climate/478025/australia-flying-fox-tolga-bat-hospital