Bats and Green Light
Some migratory bats are attracted to artificial green light which may interfere with their flight paths, according to a study published May 31, 2017 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE C. Voigt et al Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Free University of Berlin, Germany. Migrating birds are also known to become disorientated, particularly by red and white light, risking collisions with light sources. This has led to recommendations to use blue and green light for illumination, but the effect of this light on bats had not been established. The authors exposed bats migrating south along Latvia's shoreline to periods of artificial green light at a wavelength of 520nm, and analyzed bats' echolocation calls during lit and unlit intervals to assess the impact of the light. They found that the two most abundant migrating bat species detected, Nathusius' bats (Pipistrellus nathusii) and Soprano bats (P. pygmaeus), were attracted to the gr...