To assess the risk for rabies transmission to humans by bats, we analyzed the prevalence of rabies in bats that encountered humans from 1977 to 1996 and characterized the bat-human encounters. Rabies was diagnosed in 685 (15%) of 4,470 bats tested. The prevalence of rabies in bats that bit humans was 2.1 times higher than in bats that did not bite humans. At least a third of the encounters were...

Hibernation is a strategy used by some mammals to survive a cold winter. Small hibernating mammals, such as squirrels and hamsters, use species- and tissue-specific antioxidant defenses to cope with oxidative insults during hibernation. Little is known about antioxidant responses and their regulatory mechanisms in hibernating bats. We found that the total level of reactive oxygen species (ROS) ...

Previous studies reported that fed bats and birds mostly use recently acquired exogenous nutrients as fuel for flight, rather than endogenous fuels, such as lipids or glycogen. However, this pattern of fuel use may be a simple size-related phenomenon because, to date, only small birds and bats have been studied with respect to the origin of metabolized fuel, and because small animals carry rela...

Rabies virus (RABV) maintenance in bats is not well understood. Big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus), little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus), and Mexican free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis) are the most common bats species in the United States. These colonial bat species also have the most frequent contact with humans and domestic animals. However, the silver-haired bat (Lasionycteris noctivaga...

Although site fidelity to permanent roost structures by bats is generally known, long-term fidelity to areas such as foraging or drinking sites is unknown. Furthermore, mist-net recaptures of bats over multiple years are rarely reported. Extensive mist-net surveys were conducted over the course of 8 y in the Ouachita National Forest of central Arkansas, United States to investigate long-term si...

The tiger moth Bertholdia trigona is the only animal in nature known to defend itself by jamming the sonar of its predators - bats. In this study we analyzed the three-dimensional flight paths and echolocation behavior of big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) attacking B. trigona in a flight room over seven consecutive nights to determine the acoustic mechanism of the sonar-jamming defense. Three m...

Recent molecular phylogenies have changed our perspective on the evolution of echolocation in bats. These phylogenies suggest that certain bats with sophisticated echolocation (e.g. horseshoe bats) share a common ancestry with non-echolocating bats (e.g. Old World fruit bats). One interpretation of these trees presumes that laryngeal echolocation (calls produced in the larynx) probably evolved ...

clinical cases of histoplasmosis have been reported from many parts of the world principally from the usa and to a lesser extent from central and south america. sporadic cases are recorded in medical literature from europe, africa and asia. histoplasma capsulatum, the etiologic agen of histoplasmosis is a cosmopolitan geophilic fungus associated with avian and chiroptera. the association of bat...

Shade coffee plantations have received attention for their role in biodiversity conservation. Bats are among the most diverse mammalian taxa in these systems; however, previous studies of bats in coffee plantations have focused on the largely herbivorous leaf-nosed bats (Phyllostomidae). In contrast, we have virtually no information on how ensembles of aerial insectivorous bats--nearly half the...

White-nose syndrome (WNS) is an emerging infectious disease of hibernating bats linked to the death of an estimated 5.7 million or more bats in the northeastern United States and Canada. White-nose syndrome is caused by the cold-loving fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans (Pd), which invades the skin of the muzzles, ears, and wings of hibernating bats. Previous work has shown that WNS-affected b...