The yearly New Zealand bird competition community was caught by surprise when the bird of the year competition was won by a different kind of flying animal.  

Instead of a Kakapo, the Weka or the Tomtit bird winning, this year's competition was won by a Pekapeka-tou-roa or in an easier to understand language, the long-tailed bat.  According to ripleys.com, "Each year, Forest & Bird hosts a two-week-long Bird of the Year competition, giving Kiwis the chance to rank their favorite fowls from New Zealand’s 200 species in an effort to raise conservational awareness."  

This being a bird competition, it comes as no surprise that not everyone was really happy about this bat winning.  Ripleys.com continues, saying "not all were thrilled by their victory, with some social media warriors taking to the internet to rant about what they believe was a stolen election. 

"In this battle for avian democracy, we tend to lean toward the views of optimistic Twitter-users, who revelled in seeing an underdog thrive, with Twitter user Bryan C. Clark remarking, “If pekapeka tou roa can win Bird of the Year despite not being a bird then you can ask out your crush, anything is possible.”

Now we might not know much about New Zealand's bird species, but we think we can safely assume that after this competition, bats really feel like part of the bird family.