White Nose Syndrome in Bats

Some people are afraid of bats, but I think that they’re a really cool animal. Many people might be afraid of them because they look creepy, or maybe it’s because they just don’t understand them. The reason you may not understand them is because you don’t see them very often because they sleep a lot. In fact, some bats sleep for up to 20 hours per day. Bats generally have three different roosts that they sleep in – a day roost, a night roost, and a hibernation roost. They wake up from their day roost at about dusk to feed for a while. After a couple of hours, they go to sleep in their night roost. They then wake up a couple of hours before dawn to feed once more before going back to sleep in their night roost. Once dawn comes, they fly to their day roost to sleep until night comes again. Only a single bat will occupy a day roost, but all of the bats will congregate in a night roost. This creates a little microclimate that allows the bats to stay warm. Also, bats poop near their night roosts so that there aren’t feces near their day roost for potential predators to be attracted to. They also have a hibernation roost, where they go to for the winter to sleep. Sometimes temperatures can get so cold, that the bats can become supercooled and still survive. There is a problem that has come up recently with a few other species of bats. It’s called white nose syndrome. The bats get a white fungus around their muzzle while they’re hibernating. Because people first discovered this fungus in 2006, we’re still unsure of what it does exactly. Bats usually wake up every 10 - 20 days during hibernation, but bats infected with white nose syndrome tend to wake up every 3 - 4 days. Some people think the fungus just causes the bat irritation, killing them indirectly by causing them to wake up and deplete their fat reserves. The bats end up starving to death during the winter. Bat mortality in caves and mines with white nose syndrome is about 90-100%. This fungus is only in nine states in the eastern US, but it seems to be spreading rapidly. We don’t know how this fungus is spreading, but there are theories of it being spread by bats, or even by humans inadvertently carrying cave gear from cave to cave. The fish and Wildlife Service is asking cavers to stay out of caves that are known to be affected to prevent possible spread. If white nose syndrome spreads across the country, large amounts of bats could die. Bats eat a large amount of moths, beetles, and other bugs. They’re the primary consumers of nighttime flying insects and many agricultural pests. If a large number of bats were to die, it could lead to economic damage in terms of agriculture. More research needs to be done in order to better understand this new disease.