Bat prove to be no nightmare for longtime Missouri scientist

ST. JOSEPH, Mo. -- David Ashley would realize only later he had been set up, some modest hazing of the new guy.

As a junior at Bowling Green State University in his native Ohio, he got a summer internship that took him to San Antonio to collect data on equine encephalomyelitis, a virus then affecting Texas horses.

Colleagues knew he liked snakes, and they directed him to the entrance of Bracken Cave. At dusk. He went, as instructed, among the boulders and logs, looking around.

Then, he heard rustling come from the cave, soft at first, turning slowly into a roar.

Here came millions of Mexican free-tailed bats, out for a night's foraging.

"The largest colony of warm-blooded animals in the world came out past my face," he said. "I just sat there, and I was mesmerized."

In the 45 years since, Ashley never lost that fascination with bats.

His career would take him to a doctoral degree in invertebrate biology and parasitology, to a professorship at Missouri Western State University, to rainforests and mountain ranges and deep caverns.

With a scientist's curiosity and a fondness for "creepy crawlers," Ashley made himself available for assignments that seemed anything but glamorous. One person's tedium is another's intrigue.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service once needed someone to wade into a creek every few months, turn over rocks and count tiny snails. The agency called Ashley.

From that long-ago time in Texas, he developed an interest in caving, something he eventually would teach at Missouri Western. Where some like spelunking for the adrenaline rush of squeezing through sloppy passages underground, the scientist reveled in what life could be found in those dark places.

"My biggest thrill is to see cave-adapted animals that are blind and have no pigment and find a way to eke out a meager existence in the mud of a cave," he said.

Bats help make this possible. In some habitats, they become a keystone species.

"They make contributions to that community that are far beyond being one part of it," Ashley said.

Consider the ecosystems above ground. Photosynthesis rules. Plants grow, organisms feed on them, others feed on those organisms, and so forth.

"There's no sun in a cave," the scientist said. "Where does all this food come from?"

At night, bats leave caves and find their meals on the surface, sometimes eating their weight in insects. Back underground, they leave their droppings, huge piles of guano, and bacteria and fungi find a place to be. A food chain commences.

"All of a sudden, you've got organic nutrients in that cave," Ashley said.

Despite this ecological contribution, bats remain underappreciated and misunderstood.

For one thing, the scientist said, the term "blind as a bat" is fallacious. Bats have eyes and vision, though their nocturnal feedings require an evolved sense of echolocation.

For another, bats are no more likely to carry rabies than skunks, foxes or dogs. Less than 0.5 percent of those tested have the virus.

About those vampires, know this: They exist. Not like the smoldering, moody sorts of the "Twilight" movies, but the Central and South American species that haunt chicken coops, make small cuts on animals and lick the blood that comes out.

"It's not what you would anticipate from Dracula types of movies," Ashley said.

The professor retired a couple of years ago but still does research on campus -- "I come and horn in on my buddies here" -- and gives lectures occasionally called "Batty About Bats."

The guy who used to pick up roadkill and look for parasites that might be lurking inside, who never met a millipede not worthy of his inspection, takes a purist's view when considering the worth of bats.

A tendency exists to put a dollar value on the positive effect of bats, how their appetites cut down on mosquitoes and menace moths to reduce the crop-destroying cutworm population. Farmers get better yields and use fewer chemicals.

Ashley understands this but sees no need to quantify the point.

"I just think bats are good for the environment," he said.