Hope bat poo study will unlock animal secrets
A scientist in far north Queensland is studying bat poo to discover why so many south-east Asia countries have unique animal species, despite it once being a single land mass.
Dr Chris Wurster, from James Cook University in Cairns, says the 'guano' collected from Indonesian caves will contain information about the region's vegetation changes.
He says his next trip to collect samples from Indonesia is in January and he is not short on scientists to help collect data.
"The idea then is the bats act like 'little scientists' for us and they go out and they sample the local insect populations that are around the cave," he said.
"Then they bring those insects back in the forms of their cuticles and deposit it on the cave floor."
Dr Wurster says the challenge is finding undisturbed sites.
He says caves are identified from literature or from local knowledge that a place has guano, but the terrain can pose problems.
"You'll go there and it's either 100 metres up a cliff and you can't really get to it with the equipment you have, or there's a river running down the middle of it and it's washing all the guano away," he said.