Earth, wind and fire: the fruit bats of Montserrat have had to contend with most of nature's torments. (Naturalist At Large).

Publication: Natural History

Publication Date: 01-JUL-03

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It was July 1997, and a long night, which had followed a long day, was finally nearing its end. A volcano was grumbling, and rain had just begun ... again. My right boot was quickly filling with water and sinking deeper into cold mud, and a large, muscular pig-nosed fruit bat (Brachyphylla cavernarum) had latched its mouth firmly onto the flesh of my thumb. I had been careless taking the bat out of one of my mist-nets--a finely spun net--and the bat was impressing this fact on me.

For once, though, the truth didn't hurt. Typically a bite from this species would have left me trying to stifle a string of colorful expletives, but this animal didn't have a tooth left in its head. The rather soggy-looking, unfortunate animal was also just about entirely bald. Things were getting a bit surreal: a hairless, toothless bat was gumming my thumb as I stood on the flanks of an active volcano; large, glowing rocks were rolling down the slope in my general direction; and now the mud was beginning to swallow my other boot. I suddenly felt the need for a very cold beer.

The pathetic bat and I were in the British crown colony of Montserrat, a rugged, forty-square-mile tropical island in the northern Lesser Antilles, some 250 miles southeast of Puerto Rico. Although Columbus never bothered to land on the island, he named it, in 1493, after a Spanish monastery near Barcelona, famous for its wooden statue of the Virgin and child. The British colonized the island in 1632, and a succession of sugar cane, cotton, and lime plantations dominated the local economy.

Montserrat lies in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean's "hurricane belt" a highway of sorts for the storms heading north from the Tropics. At least thirty hurricanes have battered Montserrat in the past 360 years; twelve have been severe, and Hurricane Hugo, in 1989, was the most destructive in recent history. Montserrat also lies near the convergence of the North American and Caribbean tectonic plates, so if the hurricanes don't get you, the earthquakes and volcanic eruptions might. Major temblors hit the island in three periods: 1898-1900, 1933-36, and 1966-67. Seismic activity in the Soufriere Hills volcano, beginning in 1992, resulted in an...

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