Are bats afraid of the Moon?
OCT 01, 2012
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.026391
BBC : According to a study published in Mammalian Biology, bat activity decreases as moonlight increases. Using data on 26 species from 11 studies, the researchers modeled the activity of bats “at different latitudes and in different habitats against the phases of the Moon,” writes Matt Bardo for the BBC. Type of habitat plays a key role: “Habitats where light enters more easily causes more bat-activity decreases compared with bats that forage in the darkest places,” said Romeo Saldana-Vazquez, the study’s lead author, who is at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. The reason may be twofold: More light may make bats more vulnerable to predators and also may cause bats’ prey to become scarcer.
© 2012 American Institute of Physics
