Comic on Fruit Bat Geophagy: “Dave Eats Dirt?!”

Cassie Erdman used the medium of drawing and coloring a comic strip, showcasing the information she found about Geophagic behaviors in Indian short-nosed fruit bats. She was inspired by the learning objective “describe common nutrient deficiencies and their associated diseases.” She took “describe common nutrient deficiencies” part of this learning objective, and went and looked for more information on Geophagy, which was briefly discussed in class as a source of nutrients to avoid the deficiencies. 

In her essay, Cassie focuses on describing all of the different things Indian short-nosed fruit bats can and do consume, and why. There are lots of ways for fruit bats to gain the nutrients they need. Two of those ways being soil consumption and mineral licks. Soil consumption allows for the rapid addition of magnesium, sodium, calcium, and potassium into the body of an Indian short-nosed fruit bat. Salt licks left out by the human population is also a way that bats can get sodium into their system. Indian short-nosed fruit bats have been recorded to follow both of these behaviors of consumption.

Cassie decided to draw one such Indian short-nosed fruit bat and name it Dave, making Dave eat dirt. Thus the title of her mini comic strip emerged. Above is the comic she made, which reads left to right and top to bottom. In simple terms, Cassie described the geophagy of Dave, talking about how he feels before and after eating soil and licking salt in order to showcase that these are necessary nutrients.