"Researchers who ventured into the cave wore respirators and
tightly fitting clothes. Not only could they be showered with droppings from
the bats overhead.., there would be the thick layers of powdery guano, the
crawling beetle larvae, the infernal heat, and the intense vapor of ammonia. To
the bats, it’s bliss: a toasty incubator. For them, hell would be trying to
live where we do, in refrigerated boxes without fresh air or sunlight, which we
litter with obstacles and perfume with such irritating essences as peppermint,
lemon, and chlorine bleach. Perhaps they would find it strange, as I do, that
we feed on dismembered animals no longer resembling what they are; and yet,
paradoxically, we insist on cooking them to the warmth of fresh prey."
– Diane
Ackerman, in her essay, In Praise of Bats
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