Scientists from the National Wildlife Health Center have a fungus that causes a deadly and highly contagious disease that has decimated bat populations across the United States. In a study published yesterday in Nature, the team recreated fungal infections with Geomyces destructans and noted the same syptoms鈥攏amely a white fuzz that grows on the noses of infected bats鈥攖hat biologists have observered among bats populations affected by white-nose syndrome in the wild. The disease has killed so far, including up to 90 percent of bats in some infected hibernacula. The U.S. Forest Service has to tourists and spelunkers in an attempt to prevent the spread of the disease. Though the fungus exists in European bats, it has not been responsible for deaths there.
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