On Bats

No Time for Bats to Rest Easy

By NATALIE ANGIERJAN. 12, 2015

Photo

Pallas’s long-tongued bat, above, is a valuable pollinator. Hibernating bats are vulnerable to white-nose syndrome, which has killed at least six million of them in North America.CreditMerlin D. Tuttle/Bat Conservation International

LEWISBURG, PA. — The 10 hibernating little brown bats hang from a corner of their tailor-made refrigeration chamber at Bucknell University like a clump of old potato skins, only less animated. In torpor, bats become one with their wintry surroundings, their body temperatures falling to just above freezing, their heart rates slowing to one or two beats a minute, their breathing virtually undetectable./.../