![](https://covers.powells.com/9780385539838.jpg)
Bats are a much-maligned animal. Long thought of as creepy or evil or diseased, a closer look reveals that the wide variety of bat species also possess an amazing array of attributes and perform all sorts of vital ecological roles: from pollinating bananas and mangoes to eating so many insects every night that they save farmers millions in pesticide. I've written a book that features bats. It's called
Bats of the Republic (as in the Republic of Texas). It's set in the 1840s when Texas was its own country for those few strange years, and the main character is a naturalist who travels to Texas and becomes obsessed with documenting all the bat species there (like an Audubon for bats, really). He makes camp outside of a cave and creates many drawings of bats, featured in the book.
He's a bat lover, and I hope the book reveals why we all should be. To that end, I've put together a list of other books that reveal these fascinating creatures and their essential role in the ecology of the planet and human activities. There's never been a more important time to pay attention to bats. White Nose Syndrome is a relentless new disease that has devastated the North American bat population in recent years. White fungus appears on the faces and wings of hibernating bats, causing them to wake up in the middle of winter when food sources are scarce. The mortality rate at the caverns where the disease is discovered often approaches 100%. Over 6 million bats have died since 2006. This ecological disaster is the most precipitous decline of wildlife in a century and has wide-ranging implications for the environment, farming, and biodiversity...