Q18: What do you know about bats? (yes, bats!)

Our laboratory animals can certainly be unusual, but perhaps one of the strangest animals we look after are the various species of bats.   Today's questions are on bats in the laboratory...

1. Classification:

• Which order (from the Greek 'hand' and 'wing' do bats belong to? _________  
• There are over 1300 known species of bats. Big Brown Bats and Little Brown Bats are common in the United States. What is the genus and species of big and little brown bats? 
• The big and little brown bats are part of the bat family___________________

2.  Bats in North America are a reservoir species for rabies, and have surpassed dogs as the major source of human rabies cases in North America.  

• Rabies virus belongs to the family_________ and genus ____________________
• All personnel working with bats or bat tissues should be vaccinated against rabies. Initial rabies vaccination consists of single/multiple (pick one) doses.
• True or false?  Following potential exposure, vaccinated individuals do not need post exposure prophylaxis.
• True or false? Post exposure prophylaxis may consist of more than one vaccine dose and immune globulin
• True or false?  The incubation period for rabies in bats may exceed 13 weeks                            

3. Biology

• Although some species of bats may suck blood, eat fish or small mammals, or eat nectar or pollen, the vast majority of bat species feed on __________
• Bats are nocturnal/diurnal/crepuscular and sleep in ________ 
• True/false  They live many times longer than other mammals of the same size
• The gestation period is ___________ and newborn bats are precocious/altricial
• True/false  Some bats hibernate and migrate seasonally 

4. Bats use a unique method to locate their prey_____________  This, together with study in the wild for evidence of ___________constitute 2 major areas of research using bats.

5. Over 200 viruses have been detected in bats and there is some evidence that some bats can remain asymptomatic while harboring viruses that can infect humans.  In  addition to rabies virus, bats are increasingly being linked with emerging human diseases.  

• True/false  In addition to rabies, bats are suspected to have acted as reservoirs, either directly, via fomites/vectors (such as partially eaten fruit), or via intermediate hosts such as carnivores (e.g. ferrets, raccoon dogs) perissodactyls (e.g. horses) or artiodactyls (e.g. pigs and camels)  for the following diseases:
• Rabies-related viruses such as Australian bat lyssavirus
• Paramyxoviruses such as Hendra virus and Nipah virus
• Coronaviruses such as SARS/MERS
• Filoviruses such as Ebola virus and Marburg virus
• Alphaviruses such as Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus 

6. True/false. Wild caught big brown bats may be infested with mites, ticks, bugs and various endoparasites and should be treated for parasites on arrival in the laboratory. 

• True/False  Ectoparasites have been implicated in the transmission of white nose syndrome (Geomyces destructans), which is causing rapid destruction of small brown bat populations in North America

ANSWERS POSTED HERE or click on the answers 11-20 on right sidebar