Every year, tens of thousands of bats fall victim to wind turbines across Australia – but it doesn’t have to be this way. We can easily protect both the environment and these special animals, with just one simple change. Recent studies have shown that just increasing the wind speed that turbines use when they start […]
Tag: bat
Australia Could Prevent Thousands of Bats From Being Killed Each Year by Wind Turbines With Simple Fix, Study Finds
Wind farm operators in Australia are being encouraged to use the simple method of curtailment — increasing the wind speed required for turbines to start rotating — which a new study has found can drastically lower how many bats are killed by the enormous blades. The tactic is already being used in the United States, […]
Fruit Bats Have Cognitive Abilities Previously Believed to Be Exclusive to Humans, Research Finds
Researchers from Tel Aviv University (TAU) have studied free-ranging fruit bats in a colony in Egypt to answer the long-standing question of whether animals have complex cognitive abilities previously thought to exist only in humans. The study focused specifically on mental time travel, episodic memory, delayed gratification and planning ahead, a press release from TAU […]
Researchers discover how nerve cells in bat brains respond to their environment and social interactions with other bats
Researchers have found that nerve cells in the hippocampus region of the brain encode complex information on numerous characteristics of other individuals in the same social group. The work, which is being carried out in bats, is the first to show this in a large, mixed-sex group of wild, social animals, and is important because […]
How Much is a Bat Worth? This Economist Puts a Price Tag on Wild Animals
Bats play a crucial role in ecosystems, particularly through their dietary habits. In North America, bats primarily feast on insects, including mosquitos, moths, and leafhoppers. Astonishingly, a single bat can consume up to 1,000 insects per hour. This natural pest control is not only beneficial for reducing the number of disease-carrying mosquitos but also for […]
Strobe lights and black outs: Australian power companies seek to reduce bat electrocutions
It’s an increasingly frequent occurrence on Australia’s east coast – a fruit bat foraging for food lands on a power line to rest. The flying fox (as it’s also known), spreading its wings before taking flight, touches a second power line and is electrocuted. In Victoria, a power company [Adeshola, should we talk about CitiPower […]
Despite Weather Extremes, Australia’s Grey-Headed Flying Fox ‘Is Doing OK’
The grey-headed and spectacled species of mainland flying fox — common in Australia, also known as “fruit bats” — have historically experienced such low numbers that they faced the possibility of extinction, reported The Conversation. But after a decade-long survey by the National Flying-fox Monitoring Program (NFFMP) — coordinated by CSIRO, along with state and […]
Bat with species-devastating fungus discovered in Colorado
A bat infected with a fungus that has killed millions of bats across the country was found in Longmont last month. Testing this month confirmed the little brown bat was infected with white-nose syndrome—a deadly fungus that could devastate Colorado’s native bat populations. The bat found in Longmont is the second found with the syndrome […]