A team of researchers catch bats as they fly out of the Khao Chong Phran cave at dusk near Photharam district in Ratchaburi province, Dec 11, 2020. (New York Times photo)
RATCHABURI: The bat caves reeked of bat.
In the murk of the grottoes, in a cave complex west of Bangkok, people in headlamps and with flashlights went about their business.
Pilgrims to the temple that owns the complex prayed to Buddha figurines in one of the caves, the statues’ carved expressions betraying no reaction to the plip-plop-ploop of bat droppings falling on their shoulders.
Collectors of bat dung, or guano, scraped up the droppings to sell as fertiliser, hefting bags of manure through an obstacle course of stalactites and stalagmites.
And medical researchers, overseen by one of the world’s foremost bat virologists,…
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