Missouri Radar Captures Thousands of Bats in Flight

If you doubt the number of bats that call the caves of Missouri home, you should see a weather radar that captured the moment thousands of these winged creatures took flight recently.

Kudos to Savage Fisherman Joe on the Missouri sub-Reddit who shared a radar image over Wakenda, Missouri

What kind of birds y'all got staying the night in Wakenda?
by
u/SavageFisherman_Joe in
missouri

Do bats really appear on weather radar?

Absolutely. Science.org shared an interesting read about how experts use conventional weather radar to track bats. Radio waves on weather radars reflect off of all kinds of objects including rain and in the case of the Reddit share, bats. The Weather Channel also mentioned the tracking of bats on radar.

How many bats are in Missouri?

There are 14 to 16 documented species of bats in Missouri and single colonies in one cave can hold up to 500,000 bats so if you do the math, that's a heck of a lot of bats for the entire state of Missouri. The Missouri Department of Conservation says that even if you're a bat fan, trying to handle them is a no-no. They say that bats in the state aren't aggressive toward humans, but they will bite in self-defense if threatened. It takes professional training (and very heavy-duty gloves) to safely handle bats.

Seeing these bats on radar in Missouri isn't that rare. You just have to be looking at the right place at the right time when they make their exit from the caves to the sky. The next time you see a big blob on radar and there's no storms around, you'll know what's going on.