Ripan Biswas (India) shares a moment of coexistence between a stallholder and some banana-loving fruit bats.
In his hometown of Cooch Behar, India, Ripan spotted this sympathetic solution for hungry short-nosed fruit bats. Most stallholders saw the bats as a disturbance and were scaring them away, but one seller had hung ripe bananas at the edge of his stall, just for them.
Known in Bengali as banana bats after their favourite food, these creatures head into urbanised areas to feed when fruit is scarce. Bats are important for the life of the forests, where they disperse seeds through their droppings and pollinate plants.
India
Ripan has been inspired by nature since childhood, enthralled by everything from the life and death of a grasshopper and the flashing green hue of a bee-eater to the sound of crushing dry leaves on the forest floor. His work focuses on insect macro photography and his photos have been published in magazines, including Sanctuary Asia and BBC Wildlife Magazine. Ripan has also received many national and international awards in wildlife photography competitions.
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