Call him Batman. WCS’s Executive Director for Asia Programs Joe Walston has received an honor befitting of the Caped Crusader himself—a new species of bat has been named after him.  

In honor of Walston’s work to save bats and other wildlife in Southeast Asia, a group of scientists have dubbed the newly discovered bat species Murina walstoni, or Walston’s tube-nosed bat. 

Walston says that bats get a bad rap, but are very important to forests and their people, since they aid in the pollination of plants and trees, and are the main consumer of crop pests and mosquitoes.

Learn more about Walston's tube-nosed bat and its namesake in this article from the New York Daily News.