BATS OUT OF HELL

摘要

A week before last December s massive floods in Queensland, Australia, volunteers from the Australian Bat Clinic and Wildlife Trauma Centre rescued 150 orphaned greyheaded flying foxes, these five among them. Clinic co-founder Trish Wimberley says the mothers may have left their young because they sensed the coming flood or were suffering from starvation. Preserving these endangered bat populations is important, says Winifred Frick, a National Science Foundation bioinformatics postdoctoral fellow, because bats perform "ecosystem services" such as pollinating plants and eating insects that would otherwise consume crops.