Monthly Archives: February 2011

Girl bats hang out together for a long time

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ARKive photo - Bechstein's bat roosting
German and Swiss researchers have found that the social dynamics of bats are only revealed after analyzing large data sets. The researchers examined 20,500 individual observations collected over five years and found that female Bechstein’s bats have social networks as complex and long-lived as those in dolphins, elephants and some primate species.

Bechstein’s bats are a Myotis species (Myotis bechsteinii). They roost in trees and only rarely hibernate in caves. It is an uncommon bat with a patchy distribution throughout Europe, including the United Kingdom.

There’s a brief write-up in the AAAS ScienceShots. And here’s the paper, in the Proceedings of the Royal Academy B.

While the findings lean toward the academic, they offer insight for the study of White Nose Syndrome, and into just what you might discover after collecting 20,500 observations of an animal’s behavior.

WNS in North Carolina

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US Fish and Wildlife Service map

Six bats have tested positive for white nose syndrome in North Carolina, according to that state’s Wildlife Resources Commission. Many bats appeared to have the syndrome when researchers surveyed the closed Avery County mine on Feb. 1. Five bats there were collected for testing. One dead bat was found in a cave at Grandfather Mountain State Park, also during a bat inventory, this one in late January.

Read the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission press release here.

Go here for a link to the US Fish and Wildlife Service map of White Nose Syndrome occurrences. (Map is on the bottom of page, right-hand side.)

More raccoons survive rabies with shots

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Raccoon: US Fish & Wildlife

Just four of the 26 wild-caught, captive raccoons that were fed an oral rabies vaccine on bait developed an immune response to the disease, a Canadian study has found. The raccoons that that received the vaccine by intramuscular injection were more likely to develop an immunity response (18 out of 27). When infected with rabies over a year after vaccination all the raccoons that developed an immune response after the vaccine survived, whether the vaccine was delivered orally or by injection.

The paper appeared in the Journal of Wildlife Disease.

More raccoons survive rabies with shots

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Raccoon: US Fish & Wildlife

Just four of the 26 wild-caught, captive raccoons that were fed an oral rabies vaccine on bait developed an immune response to the disease, a Canadian study has found. The raccoons that that received the vaccine by intramuscular injection were more likely to develop an immunity response (18 out of 27). When infected with rabies over a year after vaccination all the raccoons that developed an immune response after the vaccine survived, whether the vaccine was delivered orally or by injection.

The paper appeared in the Journal of Wildlife Disease.

Are they eating people food?

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Is a particular species eating human-provided food? A group of researchers studying the endangered San Joaquin kit fox found that analyzing the stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen in the foxes’ fur painted a more accurate picture of the foxes’ diet than scat analysis alone. The team’s analysis is based on the idea that corn, a C4 grass, is the basic building block of modern, industrial food. Therefore, in areas of the country where C3 grasses predominate, looking for that skewed C13/N15 stable isotope signature can point towards a diet of modern, industrial people food.


The researchers found that the kit foxes living in an urban area in California had a C13/N15 signature almost identical to the people living in the area. And while they found the occasional scrap of food wrapper, because there are no bones or hair, the foxes’ people-food meals (which might have been garbage, or dog food left on the back porch), otherwise left little evidence in scat.

The researchers note that this technique has widespread uses. They also note that C4 grasses are native to some areas of the country, particularly in the South and West, and and would influence results there.


The paper, in The Journal of Mammalogy is open access.


Photo: B. “Moose” Peterson. Courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

White nose syndrome in Indiana

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Researchers found two bats that appeared to be stricken with white nose syndrome while doing a winter survey of Endless Cave in Washington County, in southern Indiana. This Indiana TV station says the disease was confirmed in one of the bats. However, when last checked, the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s map (at bottom of page) still showed the incident as a suspected case of white nose syndrome. It may be updated by the time you read this.

In other white nose syndrome news, the cover story of the journal Conservation Biology examines white nose syndrome. The researchers conclude that culling sick bats won’t stop the spread of the disease.

Shrew in a bottle

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North Carolina researchers found vertebrate remains in 4.5 percent of the open bottles they found on roadsides. The researchers recovered the remains of 553 small mammals, including five species of shrew and six species of rodent. They suggest that such an examination of roadside trash can be a way of surveying shrews without causing additional deaths in pit falls or snap traps. It’s also pretty good testament to the benefits of bottle refund laws.

According to the authors’ citations, the idea of using discarded bottles to survey the abundance of shrews goes back to at least 1966.

The study appeared in Southeastern Naturalist. Read more.

Measuring citizen scientist skill and effort

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Recreational bird watchers can provide a lot of data on species abundance, but how can you separate the effects of skill and effort from actual trends? Just look at the length of the species list, says this paper in the journal Ecological Applications. The length of the species list is a good indication of survey effort, when a few factors are considered. The paper tests and refines the List Length Analysis technique first developed by Australian scientist Don Franklin.

Photo: bird watchers at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Oregon. Courtesy US Fish and Wildlife.