More than 1,500 Mexican free-tailed bats have turned a private bridge in Orange County, California, into a nursery. The problem is that the Hicks Canyon Haul Road Bridge across Santiago Canyon was scheduled for demolition. Now the bats and their home will be spared, reports the Los Angeles Times. County Supervisor Bill Campbell, local activists, several agencies and the bridge owner spent much of the past year negotiating a plan to save the structure....more

The Mexican long-tongued bat flies into a backyard garden in the Tehuacan Valley of central Mexico. It is well after midnight, and the scene in the video camera’s viewfinder has a greenish tint. The bat approaches a bugle-shaped flower growing high on the soaring column of a pitaya cactus. It hovers for a split second, dipping its face into the open flower. Then it flies off into the night in search of another flower to again complete its crucial role in the pollination cycle...more

One drawback to conventional bat houses is that temperatures inside the roost chambers can sometimes fluctuate dramatically, forcing bats to expend considerable energy in order to maintain their body temperature. In an effort to create a more thermally-stable bat house, Bat Conservation International helped Marvin Maberry of Maberry Centre Bat Homes design and test a new type of bat house. Maberry, an innovative bat house manufacturer and long-time volunteer with BCI’s Bat House Project, developed a prototype in fall 2002 called the Belfry Tower II “Sand Box.”...more