How weather impacts Missouri’s bats
This time of the year if you look up into the skies around the woods, you have a good shot at seeing native bats hunting flying insects. During the daytime hours, especially in excessive heat, bats often times will be seen hanging out in caves, tree bark, and even man-made structures.
According to Kyle Jansky, Missouri has about 14 species of bats. Kyle Jansky is a bat biologist with the Missouri Department of Conservation and explains how significant changes in temperatures can have various impacts on local bat populations. Kyle Jansky, "If it's been a hot day, they'll go get a drink and then they'll just forage for a few hours looking for flying insects to eat." During prolong periods of extreme heat like that seen as of late, some outcomes for local bat species can be more unforgiving. Extreme heat waves can cause large die-offs of bats. Kyle Jansky recalls, "You'll often see that around bat houses. Suddenly during heat waves, people will start finding more dead bats underneath the bath houses."
To avoid the dangerous heat, bats that roost in caves will adjust their position to remain near a more ideal temperature profile. When leaving caves, trees, or man-made structures after roosting during the daytime hours, bats will often first seek out water sources such as ponds to hydrate.
Thankfully, these bat kills are not overly common thanks to bats' abilities to adapt during the warmer summer months. "Some of the ways they'll handle that is moving to a cooler roost. It'll also move down to like the entrance of the roost where there's more airflow and uh they'll fan their wings, things like that to help keep themselves cool" -Kyle Jansky.
Thankfully, the extreme heat that has been seen recently has pushed out of mid-Missouri, and extended forecasts are favoring cooler than average temperature trends thanks to a high pressure system setting up across western portions of the United States. This will force winds to primarily remain out of the northwest bringing cooler air from the Dakota's back into the region.
Bat activity will remain high throughout the next couple of months before they start to get ready for hibernation as temperatures drop off into the later fall months. During the late fall and winter months, biologist like Kyle Jansky advise people to remain out of caves that bats frequent, as it can cause negative impacts to local populations.
