Bat Conservation International and four partners are cosponsoring an urgent meeting of scientists to explore the mysterious malady that is killing tens of thousands of hibernating bats in the northeastern United States. The “Science Strategy Meeting,” in Albany, New York, this June, is to examine the latest facts and hypotheses concerning the cause of bat die-offs linked to what’s being called “white-nose syndrome” – and to identify the most promising approaches for vital scientific investigation ...more

A handful of children, with bat masks on their heads and their arms outstretched, walk gingerly across the field. Each youngster hopes to avoid dumping the ping-pong ball that rides precariously in a spoon held by clenched teeth. If they get the ball into a basket, the children are rewarded with candy. The kids, some as young as 4, are pretending to be bats. The ping-pong ball stands in for pollen, the basket for a banana flower and the candy is the sweet nectar that rewards pollinating bats. So goes a lesson at Quebrada Seca school in rural Colombia ...more

Scientists have discovered a half-dozen new species of ancient bats, which lived up to 35 million years ago, hidden amid fossil fragments found at the El Faiyum oasis in Egypt, National Geographic News reports. The fossil bats, primitive versions of bat groups that still exist today offer strong evidence that modern bats evolved in Africa rather than in the Northern Hemisphere, as some have theorized, National Geographic said ...more