WWF Bats of Gibraltar - new from Gibraltar Post

Gibraltar Post has teamed up with the World Wildlife Fund to produce four new stamps featuring endangered and vulnerable bats.

The four stamps, designed by Stephen Perera, feature colour illustrations of four bats, shown flying in Gibraltar landscapes.

Greater noctule bat

The first stamp (70p)  features the Greater noctule bat, Europe’s largest and rarest bat. It is primarily an arboreal species with the largest known colonies in Iberia being the nearby Los Alcornocales Natural Park with smaller breeding colonies in an urban park in Seville and a zoo in Jerez de la Frontera.  Noctule bats of the genus Nyctalus were known to occur in Gibraltar since 1967 with identification down to species level having been confirmed in 2015.

European free-tailed bat

Next (80p) is the European free-tailed bat. Europe's second largest bat is a difficult species to study due to its roosting and feeding habits. Naturally a crevice dweller, they do not congregate in large colonies and have countless natural roosting spots available to them in Gibraltar. They are also high-fliers that rarely come down to drink as they get most of their moisture from the large airborne insects they consume.

Isabelline serotine bat

This bat (£1 stamp) was first recorded in Gibraltar in 2013. The species has only recently been recognised as a full valid species following molecular analyses using mitochondrial DNA and nuclear markers, separating it from the Serotine bat (Eptesicus serotinus).

Schreibers’ bat

The Schreibers’ bat (£2 stamp) is a cave-dwelling species long established in Gibraltar with 50,000-year-old fossils having been discovered in the archaeological deposits of Gorham’s Cave. It was once in abundance in Gibraltar and most of Europe but populations seem to have suffered massive declines since the 1970s with local populations crashing by 97.86%.

Stamp details

Issue date: 30 November 2017

Design: Stephen Perera

Printer: BPost Security Printers

Print process: Offset lithography

To purchase the stamps, visit the Gibraltar Post website. Image copyright Gibraltar Post.