We are delighted to have bats in our garden as they are an important part of our ecosystem. For instance natural insect control is their specialty – one Little Brown Bat* can eat up to 1,000 mosquitos an hour. We wanted to find out which bats live here in the Garden, as well as learn about white nose disease** which is threatening our Washington bat population.
Silver-haired Bat (Lasionycteris noctivagans)
Photo: Alaska Dept. Fish & Game
Did you know:
- Bats belong to the taxonomic order Chiroptera, which means “hand wing.”
- One out of every five mammals in the world is a bat.
- A mother bat can locate her pup by its scent and sound out of millions in a roost.
On August 3, 2016 Michelle Noe, Bats Northwest President, and her crew of four bat researchers came to the Garden to identify our bat species. They were armed with hand held bat detectors in order to detect and discover the presence of bats by their echolocation calls. Bats can vary their calls as they fly, locate prey, and communicate. Bats Northwest researchers are trained to recognize species according to the frequency ranges and repetition rates of the echolocation calls.
Bats Northwest roamed the Garden that evening and these are the bats they heard:
Hoary Bat (Lasiurus cinereus)
- Heavily-furred bats with lighter guard hairs
- During summer days live in the foliage of trees
- Normally have twins
Silver-haired Bat (Lasionycteris noctivagans)
- Prefer to roost in trees, often under loose bark
- Migrates to their hibernacula winter den to hibernate
- Normally has 2 offspring a year
Little Brown Myotis (Myotis lucifugus)*
- Weighs less than half an ounce
- Roosts in tree cavities or hot attics
- Can live 30 years or more (that’s a lot of mosquitos consumed!)
California Myotis (Myotis californicus)
- One of the smallest bats
- Often hunts insects over water
- Roosts in rock crevices, trees, and buildings, and hibernates in caves and mines.
Interesting Websites
www.batsnorthwest.org
www.burkemuseum.org/blog/small-and-fierce-analyzing-bat-bite-force
http://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/bat