Crikey! 500 tons of mosquitos eaten in one night by one cave worth of bats.

[Rabrrrrrr]

I'm watching a show on fertilizer, and they're showing some cave down in Texas filled with bats - and said that each night the bats go out and eat 500 tons of mosquitos.

THAT, my friends, is a shitload of mosquitoes. No pun intended. But figuring they each weigh an average of around a milligram, that's a lot of those little bastards.

448,000,000,000, by my calculation.

[KitchenWitch]

1. Who needs DDT?

Although I think the more squeamish amongst us might take offense at all the bats.

[Gormy Cuss]

2. But that shitload is really good fertilizer.

Bat guano is sold commercially, after all.

[texas1928]

3. So 500 tons, and we still get eaten alive.

Scary how many there are really out there. Mosquitos that is.

[dpbrown]

14. Because people aren't putting up their bat houses!

Come on, people!

[KitchenWitch]

20. Bat houses for everyone!

At least everyone in a climate that supports mosquitoes!

Yes we have no mosquitoes! (in SoCal) But we did have a tornado last night. :scared:

[rug]

4. You're watching a show on fertilizer? And you dis American Idol?

[Rabrrrrrr]

5. Yes - the fertilizer show is educational and intelligent.

American Idol is shit, but not even nutritious shit that could be used to grow something else. Poisonous shit, we should call it.

[rateyes]

6. That's some crazy

batshit.

[yellowdogintexas]

7. is it a cave, or the bridge in Austin? Big bat swarms like that are

amazing! Carlsbad Caverns National Park has a bat flight.

[NNadir]

8. I suppose watching the show would be more interesting than weighing mosquitos.

I actually would enjoy watching a show on fertilizer. What channel is it on?

[Rabrrrrrr]

11. It was on The History Channel, the Modern Marvels show.

Fascinating - Modern Marvels is a great show in general. It gives the whole history of whatever they're looking at (shows such as dams, corn, the stock market, money, textiles, horsepower, trains, and so forth), and a good range of not just modern applications but the subsidiary stuff related to it.

So for this show, fertilizer, it talked about the history of it, as well as how it is currently made. But it also got into alternative fertilizers like guano and leftover food and human waste reclamation, and showed that whole process, which was very cool. How fertilizer is spread over history up to today, including some cool modern technology that can use sensors to tell a fertilizer sprayer which square foot of field should get how much fetilizer, and so forth.

It's a very, very well done series.

[NNadir]

17. Well then. Generally shows on the history channel are batshit crazy.

Although I must admit that the "Famous Weapons of Hitler's Mysterious Ghosts" series was enlightening.

[allalone]

9. bats are great neighbors

my daughter is allergic to mosquito bites big time. And bats look so cool in the evening
when they take off from the big trees in back yard.

[GOPisEvil]

10. This is why we celebrate the bat down here.

Between Bracken Cave near San Antonio and the colony that lives under the Congress Avenue Bridge here in Austin (during the warm months anyway) bats do much to keep the pests under control here. I can't imagine life around here without the bats.

[Rabrrrrrr]

13. Yes, they are wonderful! It's too bad so many people think bats are "icky", esp. women.

All these idiots who are happy to fill their yards with chemical poisons to keep mosquitoes away, poisons that affect their children and wildlife beyond the insects they are killing, but they are afraid to put up a bat house because the bats might kill them or something.

:eyes:

[GOPisEvil]

15. Exactly. (Fun bat link inside)

If I didn't fear the hard stares of my neighbors I'd consider a bat house.

http://www.batcon.org/home/default.asp <--- all sorts of cool stuff on bats here. These folks are based here in Austin and host the nightly flights near the Congress Ave. Bridge. If you ever get the chance to see them take flight, do it. It's IMPRESSIVE. I've seen it several times and it's always damned neat!

[Flaxbee]

18. "esp. women" ??

huh?

[Fleshdancer]

21. This woman thinks bats are great

Then again, like GOPisEvil, I'm in Austin and we celebrate our bats down here. ;)

[Ellen Forradalom]

12. Let's get a big standing O for the bats!

:applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause:

[pokerfan]

16. Kill them all I say!

The skeeters, not the bats.

[momophile]

19. I got a bat house for Christmas and will be putting it up as soon

as it's warm enough for me to varnish it. damn the cold.