Hoary bat

Hoary bat © J.N. Stuart CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

In the sidebar of the feature “Don’t hate be ‘case I’m bountiful,” (Page 21, Summer 2016) we misrepresented the diet of little brown bats. Many thanks to Harry Brightwell of Stratford for alerting us about the error.

“The suggestion that the little brown bat ‘is a voracious mosquito gobbler’ is propagating the myth that little brown bats eat a significant number of mosquitoes and play a role in mosquito population control. I think I am very safe grounds to say little brown bats can and may eat mosquitoes, but if so they do so it is in small amounts. Susan’s article that suggests a large number of mosquitoes are eaten by bats is in error and probably deserves a correction.”