Bat discovery in Michigan, USA

This video says about itself:

BAT SENSE – by Nature Video

This stunning slow motion footage shows how bats use echolocation to find water. We know how bats echolocate to hunt insects, but this is the first study to show how they recognise large, flat objects like ponds. Moreover, by testing young bats that had never encountered a pond or river before, the researchers showed that bats seem to have a built-in ability to recognize these important features of their environment. Read the original research paper here.

By Lindsay Knake in the USA:

Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge study finds two new bat species

November 13, 2013 at 10:31 AM

JAMES TOWNSHIP, MI — Two new bat species are visiting the Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge in Saginaw County.

Employees of the federal wildlife network and Eastern Michigan University staff found the hoary bat and red bat during an exploratory survey to see what types of bats are in the refuge and how abundant they are.

The study located 229 bats, including 222 big brown bats, four red bats, three hoary bats and two little brown bats.

Hoary bats are the most common in North America and have a body about the size of a mouse, according to the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology.

Red bats live in habitats with sparse human population, according to U-M.

Although little brown bats once were the most populous bat species at the refuge, a fungus called white nose syndrome has killed most of the little brown bats, according to refuge employees.

Giving someone the ‘silent treatment’ during courtship might not be the best strategy for romance. But, new research shows hoary bats fly with little or no echolocation at all as a possible mating-related behavior: here.

The hoary bat, the species of bat most frequently found dead at wind power facilities, is declining at a rate that threatens its long-term future in the Pacific Northwest, according to a novel and comprehensive research collaboration based at Oregon State University — Cascades: here.

Related articles

• Make a Hawaiian Bat Mask for Halloween! (pacificislandparks.com)
• Big Problem For Pennsylvania’s Bats (philadelphia.cbslocal.com)
• Saginaw County’s Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge reopens after government shutdown (mlive.com)
• Bats of Humboldt Redwoods (doctorfern.org)
• Big Brown Bat by Christopher Dodds (500px.com)
• Bats and Pesticides (afe2013.wordpress.com)