Article | August 18, 2011 | By Tim Lloyd Farmer Shelly Cox and her husband rely on the mainstays of Midwest agriculture: John Deere tractor, genetically modified seeds and rich soil.   They also get extra help from what you might call nature’s pest control crew – migrating bats. “They’re huge at insect control,” Cox said [...]

Published: April 4, 2011 Putting a dollar value on nature and the services it provides isn’t easy. Such numbers can show how much our human economy depends on nature’s indiscernible economy. Take bats. A study in Science magazine reveals just how important they are to American agriculture. Every day, a bat eats much of its [...]

Can scientists stop white-nose syndrome, a new disease that is killing bats in catastrophic numbers? By Michelle Nijhuis Smithsonian magazine, August 2011 Inside the gaping mouth of Mammoth Cave, hibernating bats sleep in permanent twilight, each huddled in its own limestone crevice. Every fall, these big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) squeeze their furry bodies into [...]

What’s the News: Bats are an economic boon worth approximately $23 billion per year, and possibly up to $54 billion, to U.S. agriculture, a study in today’s issue of Science estimates. Their voracious appetite for insects—a colony of 150 brown bats eats about 1.3 million pesky, crop-chomping bugs each year—means that bats function as effective, [...]

Below is a listing of websites with great information about bats, as well as a listing of the sources used in compiling the bat portion of this website… Additional Information Websites Other Sources Boyles, John et al. “Economic Importance of Bats in Agriculture”. Science. April 1, 2011. Ehresman, Bruce. “Bats and Barns”. Iowa Barn Foundation [...]