Cavechat.org

What Are Bats' Favorite Foods? The Truth Lies in the Poop

Want to know what bats eat? Just remember — what goes in must come out.

That's the principle used by researchers from the University of Bristol in the U.K. and the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario, Canada. The scientists wanted to know which insects top the list of bats' favorite food. So they collected four months' worth of bat poop (also known as guano) from roosts in Southern Ontario. A genetic analysis of insect DNA extracted from the guano reveals that the flying mammals like eating insects from aquatic environments.

Link to story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/201 ... sinthepoop

Probably moister to their palette.

hmmm If your gonna go get food for dinner you going to go to a supermarket or wander around an empty football stadium looking for leftover popcorn?

OF COURSE their diet was biased towards aquatic insects because if your a flyer, looking for flying insects, your gonna go where the highest density of food is and where there are the fewest obstructions....i.e. over/near water.

The same thing for ag areas. Their diet is simply reflecting the environment they are in.

Still, since I spent a large amount of time doing much the same thing for deer in college, I'm sure DNA bat poop analysis has to be exciting...to someone

Is there a logical reason for spending money studying bat crap?

all depends. First, on who's money it is..(the answer is probably taxpayers) Second, on what they are studying...looking for traces of pesticides can help point out chemicals that are becoming environmental poisons. Doing DNA of digested bugs can help ID what they eat down to the species level. Is it worth it? Project probably will cost a few hundred thousand at max and maybe as little as a few tens of thousands. Meanwhile we are going to spend 1 TRILLION dollars for the F-35 fighter plane. I'm a hawkish Republican at heart, but really.....we honestly need to shoot some people responsible for that kind of treason.

Point taken.