They hibernate until spring, living on stored fat reserves. These are hibernating in one of nine critically important caves that house 95 percent of the species population each winter. All hibernating bats are extremely vulnerable to human disturbance. Thousands die each winter when visits by amateur cave explorers force them to awaken and waste stored fat needed to keep them alive until spring. Remote cliff faces near desert oases provide year-round homes for several of America's most spectacular bats.
Sensitive ears hear the echoes reflected from even tiny insects.
They also can see and certainly can avoid blundering into people's hair. Moth larva including corn borer and other moths whose larva attack crops. Crop duster spraying insecticide chemical alternatives that already seriously threaten our health. Hundreds of insect pests are now developing immunity to agricultural pesticides, making the conservation of all nature's original controls urgently important. In the desert Southwest, bats are vital pollinators of agaves and other plants.