Cleaner fish

The authorities in Modena hope the bats can stop the onslaught of the tiger mosquito. Council workers place the bat boxes in quiet, dark, south-facing sites that bats prefer for breeding in the early months of the year. “We are trying to think of what we could do to exploit their natural predators and so we thought of bats,” says Modena’s environment councillor Simona Arletti. “Until now the measures against mosquitoes have just been based on prevention, in the sense that citizens have been told to get rid of stagnant water.” The Modena approach has resonated with other Italian cities. Rome, Venice and Treviso, are now also installing bat boxes. But the Po Valley, which runs from the western Alps to the Adriatic, where summers are hot and humid, is particularly infested with mosquitoes. And the arrival of the tiger mosquito from Asia in 1990 raised the stakes in the annual summer battle. An outbreak of chikungunya fever around Ravenna, a city to the east of Modena, led to the death of one elderly citizen. The Italian zoologist, Danilo Mainardi, writing in the Corriere della Serra, said: “It would be wonderful if, finally, bats started to enjoy our help and goodwill.”