A special kind of beauty contest featuring bats kicked off in the lead-up to Halloween. The Bureau of Land Management hosts its “Bat Beauty Contest” to raise awareness about the animal's ecological importance. The federal agency posts photos of wild bats taken by its staff on its Facebook and Instagram accounts, and then asks people to vote for the cutest one. The first round of voting began Thursday. It pitted a Townsend's big-eared bat named Sir Flaps-A-Lot from Utah against a hoary bat fittingly named Hoary Potter from Oregon. The beauty contest will continue in rounds over the next week and wrap up on Halloween next Thursday.
