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Do bats hibernate1/19/2024 ![]() ![]() “Large maternity colonies in trees shoots down the theory that bats only came to Alaska as buildings went up,” she said.īiologist Jesika Reimer created this graphic showing the summer activity of little brown bats in northern Alaska. Maybe they just roost in cabin crevices because they resemble the tight, dark spaces they rely upon in nature. There was a natural bat nursery, which suggests to Reimer that little brown bats don’t need buildings, or humans, to thrive. They counted more than 100 bats flying out of a crack in the tree. Instead, they tracked the bats to an old cottonwood tree that had a foot-high pile of bat guano at its base. When later tracking them with handheld receivers, they found the mother bats did not return to the cabin. In the Copper River Valley, Reimer and her co-workers in summer 2017 radio-tagged mother bats at their cabin roost. This delicate species’ association with manmade structures makes some biologists think bats exist in northern Alaska only because of us: our houses and sheds have made a marginal area to hibernate slightly more safe and warm.īut Reimer and other biologists found bat maternity colonies away from buildings. Myotis lucifugus, the little brown bat, photographed near Haines Junction in the Yukon. The roosts are places where bats can rest in the daylight from their periods of hunting insects at dusk.įollowing up on all the reports from people who have noticed bats in their buildings, biologists over the years have captured and tagged bats and have put out sound monitors to see when bats are squeaking around. ![]() Alaskans have noticed bats flying in midsummer from notches in the peak of their cabins on the Salcha River and similar spots. In early spring, mother bats suddenly appear in large maternity roosts. If things go well this winter, the females will emerge next spring with a tiny fetus growing within them. Mama bats, now hanging out there in some unknown space, are storing the sperm they received during mating swarms. She said this palm-size creature that weighs as much as a quarter lives more than twice as long as your dog: from 35 to 40 years. Along with a few colleagues around Alaska, she is sharing new information about the farthest-north bat. Jesika Reimer, a bat expert and consultant, has held in her hands little brown bats from the Northwest Territories to the Tanana River. (Photo by James Evans / University of Alaska Anchorage) On Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in 2018, biologist Jesika Reimer releases a little brown bat with a radio transmitter on its back. ![]() Updated: SeptemPublished: September 17, 2022 ![]()
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