Ever Heard of a Bat Who Loves Being Petted By Humans? Meet Jeddah. [Video]

• Bats are not pets. They don’t even pass as cute animals, or at least that’s what most of us thought.
• Jeddah is very different from other bats and he loves his human massages.
• These videos will convince you how adorable Jeddah is whenever his caretaker caresses him.

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We normally don’t think of bats as cute animals, do we? I mean dogs are cute, cats are cute, but bats? No! That is if you have not seen yet the video that Mandi Griffith, an animal rescuer at Sydney Wildlife in Australia, has posted recently. 

Jeddah is a young grey-headed flying fox bat—a native species in Australia—and Mandi is his caregiver. These bats are huge with adults that could measure up to 11 inches and could weigh as much as 1.5 pounds. They are as important to the ecosystem as all other fauna. 

After Jeddah was found alone in the ground as a tiny baby, he was brought to Sydney Wildlife and the veterinarian said he had a concussion. Mandi decided to hand-raise him and he observed he is different from others.

“Jeddah was a very vocal baby, making adorable squeaking noises as he enjoyed his warm milk, or was groomed,” she said.

“There was nothing he liked more than being tucked inside my jacket as I worked cleaning the aviaries, cleaning food buckets, and tending to the other bats. Occasionally he’d extend his little thumb and draw my hand to his head so I could tickle his ears and he would squeak like crazy in ecstasy.”

Mandi shared a video of Jeddah’s cute little squeaks and it was so adorable! At first look, you would even mistake him for something else other than a bat.

As Mandi massages his head, Jeddah looks like he is having the best pleasure in life! Not only is he making adorable squeaks but he also rolls his eyes as if he was in great delight.

Soon, Jeddah will transition into a creche and learn how to do “bat things” but for now he is just enjoying the care and love and rubs of his foster mother. 

“After 5 weeks in a creche, baby bats go from adorable little melting fuzzballs like Jeddah to confident, gregarious, colony animals desperate to get out into the wild and fly free,” Mandi said. “For this reason, bats are very rewarding to rehabilitate and release but don’t make good pets as they need colony life for their mental health, and to fly to keep them healthy.”

But since Jeddah has a really sweet personality, he never really became better at being a bat, so instead, he lives now with a licensed wildlife educator who takes care of his species in the zoo and Jeddah gets the rubs all he wants. 

Source: Inspire More