There is a moth flapping it's wings on the inside of my window screen while it's snowing outside. Wonder if it has a moth version of WNS? It's only 27 degrees
outside.
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wyandottecaver wrote:Dang you TN :)
Curiosity about your moth led me to read about the winter moth, an invasive insect of the NE from Europe active in winter. (many bats eat moths). That led me to reading about a fungus that affects them, that originally was introduced to control gypsy moth.
The fungus was introduced from Japan in 1904 but was not detected to persist and presumed a failure.... Until it started killing moths and spreading like wildfire in the NE in 1989.... The range map is an almost exact match to WNS. The spores (prevalant in and around trees, which also host bats in summer) invades the body of the caterpilliar and fungus grows on the outside....This led me to research the nuts and bolts of the two fungi to conclude that indeed they do not appear to be the same at least to a mammals guy.
Of course a European parasitic fly was also used too it seems, guess I'll have to run that one down later....
So, after several hours, I'm back from my "quick check" of CaveChat
So, while there certainly doesnt seem to be any lag in WNS moving cave to cave and bat to bat now, there is at least a precedent for the original introduction to have possibly happened as long as a century ago.....great.
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