Scientists have added another item to “the impressive array” of sensory abilities bats use to get around in the dark, BBC News reports. Bats use the Earth’s magnetic field to keep their bearings as they fly across the night sky, the British radio network said. The researchers, from the United States, Denmark and the United Kingdom, described their discovery in the journal Nature.

Over short ranges, and especially when hunting flying insects, bats use a biological sonar system called echolocation, bouncing sound waves from objects and analyzing the returning echo. ...more

Drought and development are taking an increasing toll on natural water sources in North America’s arid western regions. Bats, birds and many other wildlife species are being forced to turn for survival to an assortment of livestock watering troughs, tanks and ponds. Unfortunately, many of these vital artificial water supplies are installed, located or maintained in ways that deny access to bats and other wildlife – and often put drinking bats at severe risk of drowning ...more

New Zealand has only three native terrestrial mammals, and all three are bats. One, the greater short-tailed bat, hasn’t been seen since 1965 and is considered extinct. The other two – the lesser short-tailed bat and the long-tailed bat – are in serious decline. Isolated for more than 80 million years, the plants and animals of New Zealand evolved...more