SUMMARY
On 29 Nov 2025, I found a group of 12 Variegated Butterfly Bats (Glauconycteris variegata) day-roosting in a Mahogany tree (Trichilia species) on the outskirts of Saint Lucia town (KwaZulu‑Natal Province, South Africa). I checked the site again on 4 Dec and 5 Dec 2025 and they were still using the same tree.
iNaturalist (2 Mar 2026) shows only 12 photographic records across Africa, with none in South Africa. The nearest photographic record in iNat is 1,100 km to the north, in central Mozambique. GBIF (2 Mar 2026) shows 9 records in South Africa, all without images, and they refer to preserved specimens of which the most recent record is from 1988 (37 years ago). Only three of these GBIF records are georeferenced, and all three are within 70 km of this Saint Lucia record. The images here appear to be the first published images of roosting Butterfly Bats in South Africa.