She says it’s a “gut punch” each time she hears of a new outbreak.Ĭolorado reported its first infected bats earlier this year. Winifred Frick, chief scientist at Bat Conservation International, who has followed white nose syndrome’s march across North America, said the fungus has been found in 38 states so far. ![]() “We can’t tell exactly what that is, but we have genetic research that we’ve collaborated on that suggests those bats do have factors that are related to hibernation and immune response that are allowing them to tolerate this disease and pass those features on to their young.” “There’s something special about those bats,” Bennett said of Dorset’s little browns. Participants In Devour Indy, Hamilton County, IN Festivals See a full list of all Hamilton County, IN restaurants that are participating in the Devour Indy Winterfest and discover something delicious to eat. Though Dorset’s little brown bats are holding on, other once common species found with them, like northern long eared or tricolor bats, are almost impossible to detect there now, Bennett said. Scientists have known for years that some little brown bats seemed to survive being exposed to the fungus, despite an overall mortality rate that was feared could eradicate them. Their health hints that at least some species are adapting to the fungus that has killed millions of their brethren across North America. Smaller than a mouse and about the weight of three pennies in the hand, the Dorset bats skitter across the cave walls or cling to one another for warmth. They die of exposure or starvation because the insect population is too sparse to support them that time of year. The fungus wakes bats from hibernation, sending them into the frigid, winter air in search of food. White nose syndrome is caused by an invasive fungus first found in an upstate New York cave in 2006, a short bat flight from the Dorset, Vermont, colony. ![]() Bat bones litter the cave floor like dry lawn-mower cuttings. ![]() It’s here, in deep passages that creep into a Vermont mountain, where scientists found one of the first North American outbreaks of the fungus that causes white nose syndrome. Now in early May, they’re waking, detaching from their rock wall roosts and making their first tentative flights in search of the moths, beetles and flying aquatic insects they devour. The little brown bats, survivors of a deadly fungus that decimated their population, went into hibernation last fall. (AP) - Deep in a cool, damp cave in Vermont, tens of thousands of furry, chocolate brown creatures stir.
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