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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 9, 2010 19:30:50 GMT
 The arrows point to unusual white noses in a cluster of bats in a New York cave during the winter in 2006. The white is apparently caused by a fungus and may be related to an unusual number of bat deaths. Read below for more information sourceThe photo illustrates White Nose Syndrome, which appears to be spreading westward. In 2009, a bat in France was also diagnosed with WNS. Researchers are saying that if the spread continues the way it has in the past four years, the little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus) may vanish in sixteen to twenty years. Bats like M. lucifugus — and the eight other species in which WNS has now been found — are crucial to cave ecosystems, which rely on nutrients captured on the wing and delivered in bat droppings. Of more utilitarian importance to people, cave-dwelling eat vast amounts of crop-infesting insects. ...
We can expect economic and ecological consequences. ...
In 2006, before the WNS outbreak, ... a study [was published] estimating the economic value of insect-eating bats in an eight-county region of southwest Texas at about $1 million in pesticide costs alone. sourceWhat is white-nose syndrome?In February 2006 some 40 miles west of Albany, N.Y., a caver photographed hibernating bats with an unusual white substance on their muzzles. He noticed several dead bats. The following winter, bats behaving erratically, bats with white noses, and a few hundred dead bats in several caves came to the attention of New York Department of Environmental Conservation biologists, who documented white-nose syndrome in January 2007. More than a million hibernating bats have died since. Biologists with state and federal agencies and organizations across the country are still trying to find the answer to this deadly mystery. We have found sick, dying and dead bats in unprecedented numbers in and around caves and mines from New Hampshire to Tennessee. In some hibernacula, 90 to 100 percent of the bats are dying. While they are in the hibernacula, affected bats often have white fungus on their muzzles and other parts of their bodies. They may have low body fat. These bats often move to cold parts of the hibernacula, fly during the day and during cold winter weather when the insects they feed upon are not available, and exhibit other uncharacteristic behavior. Despite the continuing search to find the source of this condition by numerous laboratories and state and federal biologists, the cause of the bat deaths remains unknown. A newly discovered cold-loving fungus, Geomyces destructans, invades the skin of bats. Scientists are exploring how the fungus acts and searching for a way to stop it. source |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2010 10:53:34 GMT
This is alarming.I have not seen a decrease in the bats we have around here,but,they don't live in caves here either.I wonder if I'll see a diminishing number in NY when I go. There is a huge colony of them that live in the windmill across the street from my mother's house.
We have 2 bat houses up in the back and they are inhabited at present.I will need to check out their noses the next time I happen to see them.
I will never forget the first time I saw them swooping down around me one evening some 15 years ago or more when we first moved here. Totally freaked me out. Then I read somewhere in a local book on Wildlife Gardening that they were fairly commonplace. Up went the bat houses.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 12, 2010 17:02:50 GMT
I count on bats to eat mosquitoes.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 22, 2011 20:23:51 GMT
Was everyone aware that this is the Year of the Bat? I stumbled across this website. It's not devoted only to bats, but to all living things that are endangered: www.petermaas.nl/extinct/ |
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Post by bixaorellana on Apr 22, 2012 15:10:03 GMT
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Post by rikita on Apr 22, 2012 20:47:49 GMT
so cute...
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Post by mich64 on Apr 23, 2012 0:02:25 GMT
We once crafted a bat house to encourage some around our property but none ever seemed to take to it. Although we do feel them swooping over our heads when we are out sitting around the bonfire in the summer months.
One really hot summer evening, we were playing cards at the kitchen table with our friends who were visiting from Ottawa. Their daughters were about 12 and 15 years old when this happened and I thought they would never ever come back. Thousands of bats flew to our window and door screens and they were screeching! It was like a horror movie! They ate all the mosquito's that were out that night due to the heat and humidity. Have never seen anything like that since then.
We hope they are always around though, there are so many mosquito's here until about August!
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 4, 2016 16:04:02 GMT
Good grief, Mich! I never saw that post of yours. Like a horror movie, indeed. How long did the bat rush last? Adding this cute news story, though it's not about US/Canadian bats. The item featured would be useful for at-risk baby bats, wherever they might be ~ mashable.com/2016/01/03/australian-wrap-orphan-bats/#GB5rRcHBs5qJ |
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Post by mich64 on Jan 4, 2016 20:30:07 GMT
I think it was probably no more than 5 minutes, enough time to for us to run from window to window on each floor and probably enough time for the bats to eat up the bugs and move on for more! We do recall noticing the incredible amount of bugs on the screen while playing cards at the table near the kitchen window. I think the frightening part for myself was the amount on the screen at the patio door.
An unforgettable experience.
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Post by htmb on Jan 6, 2016 22:41:58 GMT
Wow, Mich! What an experience that must have been!
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Post by mich64 on Jan 6, 2016 23:17:06 GMT
You are correct htmb! quite an experience. With there being no street lighting out here, the bugs are very attracted to the screens after dark when the lights are on in the house.
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Post by Kimby on Oct 27, 2016 4:00:53 GMT
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Post by htmb on Oct 29, 2016 1:24:42 GMT
Thanks for the post, Kimby. I'm looking forward to reading it thoroughly, rather than just skimming. Good news.
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Post by Kimby on Oct 29, 2016 3:29:27 GMT
The first 75 bats treated were returned to the wild. But before they can treat bats in situ (in their caves) a lot of testing will have to be performed to rule out unintended ecological consequences. But it's a start.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 29, 2016 11:21:08 GMT
Thanks for finding & posting that information, Kimby -- a ray of hope, for sure.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 11, 2017 15:14:57 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2017 6:09:26 GMT
This just makes bats even more lovable.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 12, 2017 16:18:15 GMT
I bought you one ~ a little friend to chat with.  |
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Post by tod2 on Jan 14, 2018 6:53:44 GMT
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 14, 2018 17:03:52 GMT
Thank goodness you saw it before closing time! Can you imagine having it flap past if you didn't know it was there?! Also, you got it out before it guanoed anything.
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Post by tod2 on Jan 14, 2018 18:08:23 GMT
Absolutely! Poor little thing. I am hunting for my Fruit Bat photos I took end of last year.
Soon as we find some time we are putting up a bat house in the garden. Don't know if it will work or what kind of bats we will attract. Doesn't matter really as long as we have them keeping the flying ants and the like, at bey.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 12, 2018 14:41:28 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jun 12, 2018 21:19:10 GMT
Synchronicity...
I just put up my one remaining bat house after giving it a good cleaning and a new coat of paint, white to help keep the heat down (the other one rotted. Anything wood here has a brief life span, I had forgotten to take it down during the onset of winter and it was in a particularly hard to reach spot)
Keeping my eyes peeled for "Gene V"or maybe VI by now.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 12, 2018 22:56:05 GMT
Ha ha again for "Gene".  Did you see in the article how long bats can live? That might be your original Gene. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 13, 2018 0:57:54 GMT
Ha ha again for "Gene". Did you see in the article how long bats can live? That might be your original Gene. Ha yes!! I wasn't sure if you remembered Gene and my post was meant to evoke a response to see. T. does believe that he is the one and only Gene.He mumbled something about seeing a grey muzzle. When I queried him about it with the hopes of maybe ruling out a white nose syndrome he became cross with me saying something along the lines of "dammit, you read too much! I know the difference between an aging bat that yes, does have a grey muzzle, are you sure you let the paint dry on the box? and some PC environmental "syndrome" ( he dramatized syndrome with quotation marks with his hands)you read about probably on the Port!! Bats live a long time!! It's Gene I see. Call him whatever you want. Maybe Jr. Ask D*t, she'll know!!! OK, Ok, you guys!!!!!
Our lives are never dull here as the years go by...this I will never worry about. My brother on the other hand he worries too much when he hears us discuss these "worldly matters". |
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 13, 2018 3:39:49 GMT
I'm pretty sure what I have is gray muzzle and not white nose syndrome, which is some kind of conspiracy rumor anyway. |
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Post by whatagain on Jun 13, 2018 20:37:55 GMT
Got a french joke about bats
the question is what is a bat with a wig ?
A mouse of course.
A chauve-souris translates into a 'bald mouse' ...
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 13, 2020 16:19:04 GMT
From The Public Domain Review: October is Bat Appreciation Month! Here they are being fully appreciated in plate 67 from Ernst Haeckel’s dazzling Kunstformen der Natur (Art Forms of Nature), published in 1904. More about the image, including details of the line-up, here: publicdomainreview.org/.../ernst-haeckel-s-bats-1904 To see a very large version of this image, go here (c&p): https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50470733343_b7a3d448d1_h.jpg |
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Post by lugg on Oct 13, 2020 18:35:27 GMT
I had no idea that such a thing as bat appreciation month existed.
Since I moved here in '96 there have always been bats flying around my garden. I see them all through the spring and into earlyish autumn months ( still seeing them now) . I love watching them - try as I might I have never captured on film and I have now given up trying. The odd thing is that although I know that they must live very close; I have no idea where. I check my lofts regularly but they are definitely not living there. (No bats in the attic here !!) I suspect my neighbours loft is their home .
Anyway I am fairly certain they are pipistrelle but no idea as to which type.
Last week a friend of mine rescued a bat from her cat and got bitten for her troubles.... a series of rabies jabs was all she had to thank her.
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