A group of girls in a student dormitory have been left terrified after putting up mosquito nets to keep out insects and waking up to find bats trying to get in.

It is believed that the bats were probably after the mosquitoes but nevertheless, it terrified the students at the University dormitory in Hangzhou, which is the capital and most populous city of China’s sub tropical Zhejiang region.

The girls said that the bats turned up three nights in a row to apparently feast on the mosquitoes and other insects, typically between 4 AM and 5 AM.

Zhejiang is a subtropical region where it rarely falls below freezing even in winter and springtime has already arrived, and with it mosquitoes.

Locals, who are used to heavy rainfalls and therefore problems with mosquitoes, are usually well equipped with mosquito nets to deal with them, however, they had not expected to see the bats that were apparently hunting the mosquitoes and other insects.

Video footage taken on the girls’ mobile phones shows the bats crawling over the mosquito net and in one case one of the girls can be heard screaming as the bat appears to find a gap in the mosquito net through which to enter.

The girls said that the bats can be heard fluttering in the dark, and on one occasion when they switched on the light after hearing the fluttering, they could not even see the bat, although they knew it was in the room somewhere.

The terrified girls said not being able to see the bat was somehow even worse than when they could see it, knowing that it was there but not whereabouts it was.