Editorial of August 29, 2024

Batting Up

August is speeding by, but there is still a lot happening, and a lot to do. There is still time for one last get-out-of-town, the water is still warm and inviting (at least when the HABs aren’t paying attention), school isn’t open, baseball is intensifying, football is beginning, the grass is still green, the hayfields are mowed, the tomatoes are ripe, the corn is perfect and the deer are in our gardens. And the bats, those agile, flying furballs who are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight, have taken over the night skies, swooping merrily about all around us.

Indeed, although bats are active here from April on, the real season of bats is late summer and early fall, coming to a close after Hallowe’en, when we take down our eerie bat decorations and say goodnight and goodbye to the real ones, some of which hibernate and others of which migrate.

There are more than 1,400 species of bats living all around the world. The species—Chiroptera—is from the Greek words for hand and wing. Bat fossils date from 55 to 56 million years ago; two skeletons found in Wyoming are 52 million years old. There are 47 bat species in the United States, and Texas, Oklahoma, and Virginia each have an official state bat. There are insectivores, which are microbats, and frugivores and nectarivores—which are megabats. Microbats eat insects—flies, mosquitoes, crickets, beetles, bees; megabats eat fruit and nectar. Of all the species, the smallest is the almost two-inch long hog-nosed bat, in Thailand; the largest is the flying fox, with a wingspan of 5’7”, living in Australia, Indonesia, Madagascar and Asia. Bats’ offspring, usually only one, are called pups; and they are all very clean, constantly grooming themselves and any bat around them. Some species live for more than 30 years.

Contrary to being “blind as a bat,” all bats can see. Microbats, who can detect light at low levels, navigate to eat by echolocation, ultrasonic sounds emitted to produce echoes from nearby prey, and by sight to move from their roosts to their feeding grounds. Megabats can see as well as humans. While bats have long been misunderstood—sinister creatures of the night that conjure fear and loathing in many of us (thank you, Hollywood)—they are vital to the health of our environment and our economy. They are pollinators and seed dispersers; without them we can write off bananas, avocados, mangoes and (!) tequila; about 80 medicines come from plants that rely on bats for their survival. They dispose of agricultural pests, saving that industry upward of $4 billion a year on pesticides and crop damage, and saving us from pesticides as well. And they pollinate our orchards and groves. A bat can consume up to 3,000 insects (think mosquitoes) in a single night. Some may have rabies, although it has been found that of all the bats tested only six percent carried the disease, a lower incidence than that found in skunks and foxes.

Here in New York, there are nine species of bats. Six of these live and hibernate in multi-populous colonies, in caves; three live outside, individually, upside down in trees, and migrate to warmer latitudes in the winter; all of our bats are microbats—insect-eating echolocators. In Otsego County, the little brown bat is the most common. It is a cave-dweller and a hibernator, and it is the most likely to contract White-nose syndrome, a fungal disease that covers the nose, ears, and wings of a bat, disturbing its hibernation and depleting it of energy, thereby killing it. White-nose syndrome spreads from bat to bat, cave to bat and cave to cave, the latter in many instances by people. The disease was discovered in Howe Caverns, in Schoharie, in 2006 and it is responsible for the deaths of millions of bats and the complete extirpation of several species. More than 15 species in this country are now listed under the Endangered Species Act as endangered, threatened or under consideration.

Our bats are environmentally and economically important. They are good to have around. And they are recovering from the WNS as we become more aware of the necessity to leave them, and their caves, alone. They don’t want to get stuck in either our houses or our hair. Give them a little space.