Australia's record-breaking heatwave has claimed hundreds of flying foxes.
More than 700 flying foxes were left hanging from trees or piled up on the ground in the NSW town of Singleton after suffocating over the weekend,the Daily Mail reports.
Record-breaking temperatures were measured in Singleton, which is located approximately an hour's drive inland from Newcastle.
“The temperature gets too high, and they dehydrate. Basically,they cook from the inside out,” Wildlife Aid Inc bat coordinator Jaala Presland told Daily Mail Australia.
On Friday, and meteorologists measured Singleton at 45.5 degrees - the "highest annual daily maximum temperature for that station," according to Zach Porter at the Bureau of Meteorology.
On Saturday, that record was broken again, and when thermometers showed 47.2 degrees.
On Sunday,the town again sweltered in 47-degree temperatures, Mr Porter said.
The sustained heat was too much to handle for the flying foxes, and according to the non-profit organization Wildlife Aid Inc. The bats were faced with the choice of fleeing - and being hunted by predators - or staying in their treetop colonies and succumbing to the heat,Ms Presland said.
Source: tert.am