﻿UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



DEPARTMENT BULLETIN No. 1395 



Washington, D. C. T March, 1926 



BATS IN RELATION TO THE PRODUCTION OF GUANO 

 AND THE DESTRUCTION OF INSECTS 



By Edward AV. Nelson, Chief, Bureau of Biological Survey 



CONTENTS 



Page 



Economic relations of bats 1 



The Mexican free-tailed bat 2 



Bat caves 4 



General habits of the species _- 4 



Hibernation 5 



Food habits 6 



Guano deposits 6' 



Artificial roosts for bats 7 



Buildings occupied : 9 



The Florida free-tailed bat 10 



Malarial control by bats 10 



Summary 11 



ECONOMIC RELATIONS OF BATS 



Much has appeared in the public press in recent 3^ears about bats, 

 their vahiable deposits of guano, their alle<ii;ed destruction of malarial 

 and other mosquitoes, and the jDossibilities of increasing their use- 

 fulness to man by building artificial roosts for them, and many 

 requests for information on these subjects have come to the depart- 

 ment. L.. O. Howard, chief of the Bureau of Entomology, in 

 a paper on "Mosquitoes and Bats" read before the meeting of the 

 New Jersey Mosquito ^Extermination Association in 1916^ discussed 

 the subjcft chiefly from the viewpoint of the alleged destruction of 

 AnopJipleH in the vicinity of a bat roost near San Antonio, Texi. 

 Further definite information on the life history and general habits 

 of bats is still in demand from entomologists and officials in charge 

 of health administration and general education. 



'I'he available information on the bats of North America w^ould 

 fill a large volume, for scattered from Panama and the Antilles to 

 Alaska and Twabiador there iire al)Oiit 200 species and subspecies be- 

 longing to 77 genera and S diUVrenl ramilies. Some of the tropical 

 species are blood-siicking vam])ir('s and others are fi'iiit-eaters, but 

 nearly all the bats of tiie Pnited States and farther north are 

 insectivorous. Still the habils of the dill'ci-ent species often differ 

 as widely as do their structure, appearance, and range, and the useful 



' IlppHntf«<l fliHo in Public rioalUi Rf>rK>rtK. vol. .'»5, no. SI, pp. 1780-179'., July 30, 1020 

 (Rf-prlnt No. 7ir.). 



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