4–8
GRAMS
A single little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus)
can consume 4–8 grams of insects each
night during the active season.A single colony of 150 big brown bats
(Eptesicus fuscus) in Indiana is estimated
to eat nearly 1.3 million pest insects
each year.1 .3
MILLION
Extrapolating the diet of a single bat to
1 million bats estimated to have died from
WNS, between 660 and 1,320 metric tons
of insects are no longer being consumed
each year in WNS-affected areas.660 –1,320
METRIC TONS
If bats disappeared entirely from the
United States, it would cost the agricultural
industry roughly $22,900,000,000 per year
to save crops by dealing with the insects
no longer being eaten by bats.$2 2 .9
BILLION
Bug Zappers
Bats are skilled natural exterminators, consuming
billions upon billions of insects each year, including
crop pests and mosquitoes. For this reason, bats play
a critical role in agriculture and potentially in human
health with the onset of increased mosquito-borne
viruses such as West Nile and Zika. The loss of bat
populations to white-nose syndrome would have a
significant impact on farms, forests, and people
around the country.