Bat Counts - Discover Nature (KRCG)

This Halloween, get a bonus treat by discovering nature through a most valuable nighttime mammal – bats.
Missouri is home to over a dozen different species of bats, including the endangered Indiana bat and gray bat.
Bats are unique, as they are the only mammals that fly and one of the few that navigate by echolocation, a form of sonar.
And, bats play a vital role in Missouri’s ecology and economy by consuming millions of night-flying insects.
We have roughly 800,000 gray bats in this state and they eat roughly 200 billion insects per year and that is just the gray bat colony.
We have many other bats in the state.
Typically the most common bat you are going to see in the cities and around houses is the big brown bat and the eastern red bat.
To understand how many of these bats call the Show-Me state home, bat counts take place every summer and winter
The bat counts help scientist learn whether bat numbers are increasing or decreasing.
For more information about this fascinating creature of the night, visit mdc.mo.gov