When Professor Bernal Rodríguez-Herrera at the University of Costa Rica received a phone call about some ugly bats in San Ramon, Costa Rica, he didn’t think much of it. “Most people think all bats are ugly, so I didn't take the report very seriously at first,” he said . As it happened, what they had spotted were rarely observed “masked seducers”: the wrinkle-faced bat. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

As something of a bald ape myself, I don’t like to call animals ugly, but it’s hard to argue that it’s not a fitting description for the wrinkle-faced bat ( Centurio senex ). With the most convoluted faces of any bat, it can be hard to work out what’s what when looking at them. Wrinkle-faced doesn’t really capture jus

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