Mo Ganji: Bulmer’s Fruit Bat | Bulmer-Flughund | Aproteles bulmerae | No. 049/250 from work group 8/99

Mo Ganji’s single line approaches Bulmer’s fruit bat — a large megabat — as a reduced, essential gesture. The continuous line offers only the slightest suggestion of a bat’s presence: a contour that could be read as the head of a flying fox, yet remains open to other interpretations. By withholding detail, the drawing allows essence to surface before concept, inviting viewers to encounter the being without the weight of classification.

Aproteles bulmerae is listed as Critically Endangered (CR) on the IUCN Red List. Endemic to Papua New Guinea, the species is known from only a small number of cave sites in the Central Highlands. Once thought extinct, it was rediscovered in the 1970s, though its population has remained extremely small and fragile.

The primary threats include hunting, disturbance of roosting caves, and habitat loss in surrounding montane forests. Because the species gathers in only a few cave systems, even limited human intrusion can collapse entire colonies. Slow reproduction and the isolation of suitable habitat further increase vulnerability, making recovery exceptionally difficult.

Ganji’s line does not describe these pressures; instead, it opens a still moment in which the bat’s presence can be sensed beyond conceptual labels. The distilled outline becomes a reminder of how easily beings recede from our awareness, and how often humans imagine themselves apart from nature, forgetting their place within the very living fabric they fragment, name and endanger.