Zoe Stevenson, an employee at clothing store Verdigris on the DTM, had an unexpected visitor yesterday– a giant bat, which she says was sleeping behind one of the bags that a standing mannequin was holding.

“When I went to move the bag it was thrown to floor,” says Stevenson. “ It was just lying there looking at me and breathing fast.”

Stevenson was sure she’d hurt the bat, and that it was dying, but then it sprang to life.

“I took the photo, and then right after it spread its huge wings and came at me,” she says. “ I ran as fast as possible out the door and opened the doors and just waited for him to find his way out.”

Stevenson said the large bat circled around the store for about ten minutes.

“I was terrified,” says Stevenson. “ They scare me to start with, but I have never been that scared around a bat before. I was sure he was chasing me and going to get tangled in my hair.”

So what happened to the bat?

“It flew out of the store.”

“Myotis lucifugus. ‘The little brown bat,’ “ local nature writer Jackson Landers informs The DTM. ”Totally harmless. It probably ended up in the store by accident and then freaked out.”

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