Missouri bats: 'Fascinating creatures,' no reason to fear

Bats have long been a symbol for Halloween. The little black creatures are strange in that they hang upside down and live in dark caves with just enough mystery to make them spooky.

But experts say they shouldn�t be feared.

Missouri is home to 14 breeds of bats, the only flying mammal. None of Missouri�s bats are bloodsucking. They are generally thought to be clean, shy and intelligent insectivores.

�We have no blood-drinking bats, no fish-eating bats, just bug-eating bats,� said Jordi Raos, a naturalist with Cape Girardeau Conservation Nature Center.

All bats belong to a group called chiroptera, meaning �hand-wing,� according to Raos.

The number and arrangement of bones in a bat�s wing are the same as those in the human arm and hand. The mammals feed by capturing insects with their mouths or by scooping them into their wing or tail membranes.

Raos worked with bats while employed at a private nature center for four years prior, she said.

As the jack-of-all-trades at the nature center in Cape Girardeau, Raos said her job is to learn about a variety of topics so she can better assist the public.

�We get a lot of phone calls about wildlife problems, so people will call us and say they have bats in their home or there is a bat that lives on their stairway, and what can they do,� she said.

Raos provides education about bats, which helps to reduce fear, she said, followed by providing situation-dependent options for bat removal.

If bats have invaded a house, Raos said that particular location could then be classified as a maternity colony or a hibernaculum.

Because insects are not available as food during the winter, Missouri bats must either relocate or hibernate to conserve energy.

People are sometimes terrified of the possibility of having a bat living in their home, Raos said, because of the threat of rabies or the bat biting them and transmitting a disease.

But all are highly unlikely possibilities, she said.

�Bats generally don�t carry rabies. You would be more likely to get rabies from a skunk or a pet dog,� Raos said. �Less than half a percent of bats carry rabies. However, when you come into contact with bats, it�s either because they�re hungry, trapped and sometimes sick.�

Raos said a woman once called and said she had bats living in her home�s walls and crawl spaces.

�She wasn�t scared; she just didn�t know what to do,� Raos said. �She bought the house, and no one had disclosed that there might be bats in the walls.�

Raos suggested the woman contact a wildlife removal company and consult a wildlife biologist, since moving an entire colony of bats can be quite complex.

Missouri Department of Conservation resource scientist Tony Elliott said he ended up working with bats almost by accident, after being part of a bat study in 2008.

�Our bat biologist at the time was about to retire,� he said. �I got the opportunity to take over some of those responsibilities.�

Elliott labeled it as a great learning experience because he was able to work with �fascinating creatures in interesting areas.�

The most memorable bat-related experience for Elliott happened in 2012, as he was traveling to caves in northeastern Missouri known to house hibernating bats.

�We went into this site, and we documented what is now known to be the largest Indiana bat hibernation site,� he said.

Indiana bats usually hibernate in large dense clusters of up to several thousand.

Before that site was discovered, Elliott said he and his team estimated about 16,000 Indiana bats hibernating in Missouri.

Elliott said since then, there have been nearly 200,000 Indiana bats documented at that same site.

jhartwig@semissourian.com

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