LiveScience.com: New Jersey bat headed to extinction
The fungus plaguing bats while they hibernate can sneak beneath the skin on bats wings, damaging
the wing and as the fungi multiply they can cause the wing to swell.
Photo credit: Kim Miller, USGS.
North America's most common bat, the little brown myotis, will be all but extinct in the northeastern United States in 16 years, thanks to a rapidly-spreading fungal infection, researchers reported Thursday.
The fungus, called white-nose syndrome, grows on the exposed skin of bats as they hibernate in cool caves or mines. The infection causes the bats to wake up from their slumber, depleting valuable fat stores and eventually killing them. If infection continues at current rates, the researchers reported in the journal Science, there is a 99-percent chance the little brown myotis population will drop below 0.01 percent of its current numbers by 2026.
Follow these links to learn more about White-Nose Syndrome:
NorthJersey.com:
Fungus
kills off 90% of N.J. bats
Newjerseynewsroom.com:
Calling
all New Jersey bat lovers
Solving
the
mystery of the dying bats in New York, New Jersey, and
Pennsylvania
ESRI.com:
Mapping
the Spread of White-Nose Syndrome with GIS
Wild
New
Jersey Exclusive: A night at Bat Wing Farm
Wild
New
Jersey Exclusive: Senator Lautenberg calls for bat disease
survey
urgency
The fungus, called white-nose syndrome, grows on the exposed skin of bats as they hibernate in cool caves or mines. The infection causes the bats to wake up from their slumber, depleting valuable fat stores and eventually killing them. If infection continues at current rates, the researchers reported in the journal Science, there is a 99-percent chance the little brown myotis population will drop below 0.01 percent of its current numbers by 2026.
Follow these links to learn more about White-Nose Syndrome:
Posted by WILDNEWJERSEY at 8/8/2010 10:00 AM 
Categories: Bats
Tags: little brown myotis little brown bat population common bat white-nose syndrome infection
Categories: Bats
Tags: little brown myotis little brown bat population common bat white-nose syndrome infection
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