Bat-Killing Fungus Found in China for First Time (Newsweek): The fungus that causes white nose syndrome—an often-fatal disease that has decimated populations of several bats species in eastern North America—has been found in several spots throughout eastern China. This is the first time that is has been documented in Asia, significantly enlarging its known range. Researchers from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Northeast Normal University in China found the fungus in 9 of the 12 sites they sampled, including mines and caves where the bats hibernate. The scientist identified the fungus during sampling trips in the summer; when they returned to 5 of the 9 infected sites during the winter, they found bats infected with the fungus at all five, says Joseph Hoyt, a graduate student at UC Santa Cruz. Read the entire story >>
Vampire Bats Can Walk, Jump, and Run on the Ground (Slate): It begins as a slow creep. One wingtip is placed in front of the other—left, right, left, right. Slowly, methodically, the vampire bat inches across the ground toward the sleeping tapir. Vampire bats can stalk prey many thousands of times their own size, so one wrong move can mean a lost chance at a meal or worse, a hoof to the skull. Blood-feeding requires the stealth of a snow leopard, not the rash aerial acrobatics of the vampire bat’s insect-catching cousins. And so the vampire crawls. Read the entire story >>
A Town Called Monster Builds a Bridge for People and Bats (Wired): There’s a new bridge in the Netherlands designed for pedestrians. And bats. The bat bridge, as it’s colloquially called, arcs over the Vlotwatering river in the Dutch town of Monster. (Yes, Halloween is this weekend. No, we can’t make this stuff up.) Next Architects, which runs its studio out of Amsterdam, came up with the design when the local town of Westland held a competition seeking ecologically sound infrastructure ideas for its Poelzone waterfront. Next proposed a 160-foot-long bridge that accommodates pedestrians and cyclists while providing a much-needed place for bats to roost. Read the entire story >>
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