January 24 A Big Brown Bat

At an environmental education conference at Treehaven, UW Stevens Point's famed research station in Tomahawk, I participated in a workshop that was all about bats. I will relate some amazing facts, and some bad news, about Wisconsin's mosquito control animals. There are 8 species of bats in the state, with little brown and big brown bats being the most common. Bats have a 3:1 wingspan to body height ratio, meaning my batwings would be 18 feet wide! The wings are made of a skin membrane that connects the fingers, but the thumbs are free to hook into trees and walls for climbing. Bats also have huge ears, strong nighttime eyesight - they're far from blind - and a pouch of skin between their feet that they use to scoop up insects in flight. The only flying mammal in the world faces a big challenge right now as white-nose syndrome spreads west, north, and south. White-nose syndrome wakes up hibernating bats before winter ends, and they use up more energy and starve because they cannot find enough food. It has already claimed 5.7 million bats in North America. This week reports say that 2 eastern pipistrelle bats in Dane County were found to have the disease but were not showing symptoms. We need bats to keep insect populations balanced, so I hope we can contain the syndrome.