white nose syndrome

Since its emergence in 2006, White Nose Syndrome (WNS) is responsible for the deaths of millions of North American bats during the winter months. If you don’t know what it is, White Nose syndrome, is caused by a fungal infection, Pseudogymnoascus destructans (Pd for short). Until recently the only way to irrefutably identify WNS was to euthanize the bat and analyze its skin in the lab. However, a report published this past summer in The Journal of Wildlife Disease reveals that an old diagnostic tool for human ringworm can be re-jigged as a wildlife management tool: UV fluorescence. Continue Reading