Date: October 24, 2017
Source: USDA Forest Service - Northern Research
Station
Research by a USDA Forest Service
scientist and her partners may solve a longtime problem in bat research by
demonstrating that bats' wings are as reliable a method of identifying
individual bats as fingerprints are for human beings.
The ability to recognize
individual animals is key to wildlife research, but finding a reliable
technique that does not imperil a bat or change its behavior has confounded bat
researchers for decades. In a study published in the Journal of Mammalogy,
Forest Service scientist Sybill Amelon and University of Missouri researchers
Sarah Hooper and Kathryn Womack evaluated the use of patterns that are visible
in bat wings as a method of identifying individual bats. If widely applied,
this technique would be an easily employable identification system for bats
that does not require adding markers to the animal that could negatively affect
it.
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