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Desmodus rotundus. All images © Guardabosques, shared with permission

Guardabosques’ Meticulous Paper Portraits Celebrate Diverse Bat Species in ‘Little Friends of Darkness’

Bats can be found nearly everywhere on the planet, except for extreme deserts and the poles, and there are more than 1,400 species with an incredible variety of traits. The tiniest is Kitti’s hog-nosed bat, also known as a “bumblebee bat,” because it’s less than 1.5 inches long and weighs only two grams. Then there’s the giant golden-crowned flying fox, which boasts a wingspan of more than five feet and weighs up to three pounds.

For Buenos Aires-based studio Guardabosques (previously), the mind-boggling variety of the winged mammals inspires Amiguitos de la Oscuridad, or “little friends of darkness,” a continuing project—with its own Instagram account—capturing expressive likenesses in meticulously folded paper. Juan Nicolás Elizalde, who is half of the studio’s creative team, began the series five years ago, fascinated by the animals’ myriad ear shapes, snouts, fur, and colors.

a paper sculpture of a brown bat
Craseonycteris thonglongyai

Where Desmodus rotundus exhibits large, pointy ears and a pale nose, Nycteris grandis’s powerful ears shoot up like a rabbit’s, and Anoura fistulata’s long face and tongue are perfectly suited for reaching into crevices to catch insects. In their Guardabosques’ guises, the specimens are crafted from colored paper precisely scored, cut, and folded to shape each characteristic detail.

If you’re in the Northeast, you can find a few sculptures at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, in the exhibition Bats!, which continues through July 28. Guardabosques is about to launch on Patreon, and you can follow updates on the studio’s Instagram.

a paper sculpture of a brown bat
Acerodon juvatus
a paper sculpture of a brown bat with with very tall ears
Nycteris grandis
a paper sculpture of a light brown bat with light face that has dark markings and a red eye
Pteropus capistratus
an image containing four photographs of paper bat sculptures with various characteristics like different size ears, colors, and snout shapes
Clockwise from top left: Balantiopteryx io, Euderma maculatum, Hipposideros commersoni, and Vampyrum spectrum
a paper sculpture of a tan-colored bat with a long face and long tongue
Anoura fistulata
a paper sculpture of a bag with a yellow and brown coloration, with a fringe of fur on its forehead
Micronycteris hirsuta
an image containing four photographs of paper bat sculptures with various characteristics like different size ears, colors, and snout shapes
Clockwise from top left: Hipposideros pratti, Pygoderma bilabiatum, Hypsignathus monstrosus, and Mormoops magalophylla
a paper sculpture of a gray bat with large pink ears and a pink snout, with a large, beady eye
Diphylla ecaudata 

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