When scientists first spotted Griffin's leaf-nosed bat in Chu Mom Ray National Park in 2008, the animal was almost mistaken for a known species, the great leaf-nosed bat, said Vu Dinh Thong, of the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology in Hanoi.
Still, Vu Dinh and his team, thinking there was a chance the bat might in fact be new to science, used nets to catch some of the docile animals.
"While captured, some similar body-sized bats, i.e. [the] great leaf-nosed bat, reacts very angrily," he said by email. "But Griffin's leaf-nosed bat seems quite gentle."
The team did, however, have to contend with some vexing creatures—the "unbelievably high" number of leeches that take over Chu Mom Ray during rainy season, he said.
"It seems the leeches tried their best to capture us while we were trapping bats," Vu Dinh said.
