24-07-2025
Bat found at UT returns home to West Texas
Hubble, a big free-tailed bat that made a rare visit to Austin, is going back to West Texas after being rehabilitated.
Why it matters: Hubble became the first big free-tailed bat documented in Travis County when he accidentally hitched a ride from the McDonald Observatory in Fort Davis to the University of Texas, according to the Austin Bat Refuge.
Flashback: UT called Dianne Odegard, executive director of Austin Bat Refuge, and her co-founder Lee Mackenzie after discovering Hubble inside the physics, math, and astronomy building.
Hubble had rubbed his thumb claws completely off while trying to escape, and struggled to climb during his recovery.
"It makes us pretty happy," Odegard says of Hubble's rehabilitation. "There was no guarantee that he was going to be able to grow those thumb claws back."
Zoom in:" Mexican free tailed-bats that are common around Central Texas are about one-third of the size of the species that Hubble belongs to," Odegard tells Axios.
Austin Bat Refuge handled over 400 bats in need of rehabilitation last year, with a vast majority of those being Mexican free-tailed bats.
"We were really surprised to see him," Odegard adds.
