Group items tagged

bearing fang marks and red stains from the nightly bloodletting.

little devils

sonar and anticoagulant drugs that prevent heart attacks, he pointed out, and scientists are just beginning to understand the creatures.

the nice things about bats" to Panamanians, such as insect control and seed and pollen dispersion, came to naught.

On one side of the debate over the creatures are farmers such as Oliva faced with an escalating plague, and on the other are scientists who use bats and the scientific breakthroughs they have inspired to promote biodiversity.

"Bats have developed a radar system that can distinguish the tiniest insect in the middle of dense bush in the dead of night," said Todd Capson, a Smithsonian staff scientist who tracks the development of technology derived from tropical flora and fauna. "It's inconceivable there isn't something more to learn from that.

bad cycles have become more frequent,

Scientists theorize that the increased attacks on livestock are the result of logging that has flushed the bats out of food-rich forests, and to the growth here in Tonosi of cattle herds, a ready-made and usually stationary food supply for the bats. "The problem is a man-made one," Spehn said.

During April alone, Oliva said, he lost 10 calves to anemia caused by successive bat attacks.