Dead Fruit Bats at Meat Market
Dead Fruit Bats at Meat Market
Download JPG Dead fruit bats on a Stand at the Tentena meat market - Sulawesi Island, Indonesia
These bats has not yet been processed by the butcher. Before selling them as bushmeat, they cut off the wings, and singe them with a blowtorch to remove their hair.
In many areas of Sulawesi, fruit bats (Megabats, flying foxes) are the main source of meat. They are hunted and caught in the jungle by locals using just fishing lines and hooks
They are then sold as bushmeat in local meat shops. Apparently there are plenty of fruit bats in the jungle, so they are pretty inexpensive on the meat markets.
The bat wings are always sold separately from the body of the bat.
The fruit bats are singed with a blowtorch, to remove the hair from their body. They also singe the wings, I think to kill parasites that could be on the bat wing skin.
Bats carry all kinds of viruses including coronaviruses, but fruit bats do not carry the COVID-19 virus. However all bats can carry the lyssavirus (closely related to rabies) which can cause serious illness in humans. But the chances of getting infected by this bat virus are very small.
More info about fruit bats bushmeat:
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_as_food
