The population of little brown bats has leveled off before it hit the bottom of the cliff known as extinction, according to a state wildlife biologist, who spends part of her winters crawling through caves where the creatures sleep through the winter.
Over the past handful of years, their winter nap was not restful, for it was in that hibernaculum (Latin for a place where creatures hibernate) where the tiny, flying mammals faced extinction.
And it was a fungus that silently attached itself to the several species of bats, sapping their strength, wounding their wings and causing the mammals to wake from their winter torpor, only to die of starvation, thirst or exhaustion.
The fungus grew around the bats’ noses and mouths and on their wings and came to be known as white-nose syndrome.
Read More at New Jersey Herald
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