A few days later, those bugs lay eggs on corn, cotton and other crops west of San Antonio. A few weeks after that, the young moths, having feasted on the crops, continue the leap-frogging northward movement, chewing up plenty of vegetation along the way. The bats fly at the same altitude as the moths, and the moth migration begins at the time when female bats are pregnant and need the most food. Thus, by interrupting the moth migration cycle at the beginning, the Mexican free-tail bats have an agricultural benefit far beyond their foraging range. Free-tails in just a handful of Central Texas caves eat close to 2 million pounds of the same migrating moths every night, biologists estimate.
Conservationists hope to use tourism as a tool to protect the bats and their cave habitat.
The kids get Marcelo books, erasers, puzzles and rulers. And they learn that Cueva de la Boca is one of a series of caves in the region. Arroyo brings in the poster made by school children near another cave, Cueva de Quintero. The Cirilo kids snicker and declare that, in their estimation, la Boca is considerably nicer. The bat conservationists can talk eco-tourism and agricultural benefit all they want, but many of these children have a simple, practical reason for wanting to protect Marcelo.