by Mary Parker Sonis
Last November I set out on a morning walk with no particular expectations. It was not a peak time for bird watching, but it was a clear, crisp Carolina day. The walk was more to enjoy the fine weather than an expedition to view wildlife, but as I came around a bend in the narrow trail, I noticed a very peculiar tree fungus on one of the trail-edge trees. It was a bright chestnut color, and the fungus was growing in a vertical direction. I was curious. It looked nothing like anything I had seen before.
I walked up to it and put my hand out to touch it and laughed out loud when I felt the velvety soft, warm fur on my fingertips. This was no tree fungus; it was an adult eastern red bat. How could I have mistaken it? Not only was it clearly a red bat, it was located in the exact place where one would expect to find it.
We don’t know a great deal about these bats because they never live in colonies. The largest group you could hope to see is a small family comprised of the mother bat and her three or four offspring. Additionally, the red bat never seeks the shelter of house eaves, caves or other protected dwellings. It is strictly a forest bat.
Most often the eastern red bat will hang from a twig in the canopy and resemble a mildly wavering leaf. It will sometimes hibernate in leaf litter with its furry tail wrapped around it for added warmth. The red bat is also known for both hibernating and roosting directly on the trunk of a deciduous tree.
This particular bat was probably a male because it lacked the white-tipped fur common to the female of the species, but he did have beautiful white patches of fur at his shoulder. The fur is a remarkably saturated cinnamon color. In flight, the bat shows black membrane wings that contrast vividly against its red fur.
When red bats awaken in the early evening, they hunt low over field and forest and have even been known to pick up insects from the ground. Flight speed can reach up to 40 miles per hour. Their diet consists of moths, beetles and leafhoppers, along with any other available insect. The female red bat is unusual for bats in that she has four teats instead of the usual two, enabling the red bat often to raise three or four bat pups at one time. Many other species of bats raise a single pup per year.
So now that you know that the red bat will not be found lurking in your attic or swooping through the rooms of your house, I am sure it is all the more appealing. The red bat is quite a useful creature (as are all bats) because it eats such a vast quantity of insect pests. Any farmer would be delighted to have red bats living near a cultivated field.
The red bat is not a threatened species, but their numbers have steadily declined since the 1800s. No one is quite sure why, but habitat loss, along with losses associated with prescribed forest or prairie burnings, may be at fault. Red bats hibernate in leaf litter and would not survive a forest burn. But as a forest bat, the red bat has not fallen victim to a terrible disease that has threatened almost all of our cave-dwelling bats in the eastern U.S.
Right now, bats are facing a deadly disease that is wiping out entire bat colonies, known as “white-nose syndrome.†The exact cause of the disease is unknown, but sick bats do show the white fungus Geomyces destructans as a whitish coating on their muzzles, ears and wings.
The fungus is a relatively newly discovered species that thrives in humid, cool locales. Some researchers are calling this epidemic the worst wildlife threat in history. Affected bats awake from hibernation repeatedly and hence use up their fat reserves and starve to death. The mortality rate of WNS is thought to be more than 95 percent.
The disease has been most profoundly noted in the Northeast, but many caves are now closed to exploration throughout the eastern U.S. in an attempt to prevent spread from cavers’ clothing and equipment. The disease has most recently been discovered in bat colonies in the Smoky Mountains. While the threat is a very sad fact for conservationists, the agricultural costs could be devastating. Insectivorous bats consume vast quantities of agricultural pests, and the loss of our bats could cost billions of dollars in lost crops. Right now, the Department of Agriculture is as concerned as any wildlife enthusiast about the fate of our bat population.
It is fortunate that the red bat has not been affected by this terrible disease, but it is a reminder to all of us that we are dependent on our wildlife in unexpected and far-reaching ways. Who could imagine that a tiny 4-inch flying mammal could be responsible for the protection of our food supply?
Just a brief reminder that it is probably not the wisest idea to pet any bats you see in the forest. The number of bats infected with rabies is very small, but most healthy bats are not lying on the ground. Conversely, the bat flying around your screened porch may be accidentally trapped and not a disease vector. Open a door and let him out. We need all the help we can get with the mosquitoes.