Tanner The Golden Bat

Tanner is a golden fruit bat, the oldest of his kind in captivity, and recently celebrated his 23rd birthday by hanging around and chomping on a few pieces of papaya, mango and melon. Officials marked the occasion Friday his home located at the Cranbrook Institute in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

Only about 4,000 of the large, fruit-eating bats still live on tiny Rodrigues Island in the Indian Ocean. They live about 20 years in the wild. Tanner had been the second oldest of the 1,000 or so golden bats in captivity until a few months ago when a 23-year-old female died at Chicago's Brookfield Zoo. He's also three years older than others in captivity.

Called golden because of their reddish-blond fur, Tanner and his like also are known as golden flying foxes and are among the largest bats in the world. Tanner has a 4-foot (1.22-meter) wingspan and weighs about a pound, but no longer flies due to a wing injury.

I have always thought a fruit bat would be a neat pet. No other family in the state would have one! The only drawback is guano. Guano, better known as bat defication, would not be a fun substance to deal with. One would have to keep ole Tanner hanging over a large litter box and then the smell of the tar-like substance would permeate through the house!

My good wife has been extremely patient with all the critters that I have brought into our home. A fruit bat may really test her patience. Ya gotta love a woman who has tolerated snakes, lizards, turtles, hedgehogs, vultures, skunks, racoons - the list goes on and on!