Bats and bridge in San Antonio (again)

[David Wagner]

I am writing a chapter on the "Biodiversity of Moths" for an encyclopedia 
and wanted to start it off with mention of the bat colony in San Antonio. 
 Try as I may, I can't find the posting about the bridge that appeared on 
this list in 1999 or 1998...Can anyone help me to fill in the "xxxxxx?" 
 Thanks.

Every night at dusk three million bats flood out from beneath the xxxxx 
bridge in Austin, Texas.  Bats from this single colony harvest more than 
100,000 pounds of insects every evening, most of which are moths.  In 
springtime, moth caterpillars account for much of the above-ground insect 
biomass in temperate forests.  Estimates of species-richness for moths have 
climbed steadily over the past decade, with the more modest extrapolations 
falling between 200,000 and 300,000 species.  Whether measuring in terms of 
biomass or species-richness, moths must be held as one of the most 
successful lineages of macroscopic organisms on this planet.


*************************
David L. Wagner
Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
v. 860-486-2139; f. 860-486-6364
dwagner at uconnvm.uconn.edu