If you visit Singletary Lake State Park during the day, you know it for its quiet beauty—majestic cypress trees draped in Spanish moss reflecting off the dark waters of a mysterious Carolina Bay.
But when the sun goes down, the park transforms. The air fills with the hum of millions of insects, and right behind them come the predators.
For about 30 wildlife biologists fanning out into the pitch-black woods for the 2026 Bat Blitz, this swamp was the ultimate outdoor laboratory. Organized by North Carolina State Parks and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, the massive regional species survey aimed to document how these elusive flying mammals are faring against modern environmental threats.
More like 'flying puppies' than monsters
Pop culture frequently paints bats as blood-sucking vampires, but researchers say science tells a completely different story.
"We have not yet documented them actually turning into vampires like we see in movies," says Lisa Gatens, Mammalogy Collections Manager at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences. "We tend to fear what we don't know, right?"
Gatens, who spends most of her days managing thousands of preserved specimens in the museum’s research collections, occasionally heads into the field for hands-on research. Up close, she notes that the fear quickly fades.
"They're adorable. They're really cute. They look like little flying puppies more so than flying rats."
Even the more aggressive captures have their charm. "Even the one that likes to chew that makes me say words that you can't have on the radio—those guys, the big brown bats—their fur is just incredibly luxurious," Gatens says. "It's long and brown and it ranges in color from a milk chocolate to, like, a dark coffee color. They're quite lovely animals."
Tequila, pest control, and acrobatics in the dark
Beyond their looks, bats are ecological powerhouses. In the American Southwest, they serve as vital pollinators. "Without bats, we wouldn't have tequila," Gatens points out, noting their role in pollinating agave plants.
In eastern North Carolina, their impact hits closer to the dinner table and the backyard.
"They will consume half their body weight up to nearly their full body weight in insect mass every single night that they're out on the landscape foraging." — Lisa Gatens, N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences
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This massive appetite provides billions of dollars in free pest control to the U.S. agricultural economy annually.
Biologically, bats are marvels. They are the only mammals capable of powered flight, they are incredibly long-lived, and they possess "tremendous roost affinity," returning to the exact same roosts year after year.
Their reproductive habits are equally staggering. "When pups are born, they can weigh 40% of the mother's body weight," Gatens explains. "She hangs by her thumbnails to give birth to this enormous baby, which she then catches in the membrane that runs between her tail and hind legs."
The digital tracking revolution
Understanding where these unique mammals travel is critical for environmental planning.
"Learning where these species are, especially the rare species, really helps inform our decisions," says Ed Corey, an Inventory Biologist with N.C. State Parks. "Whether we do prescribed fire in an area, or whether we're doing a timber thinning operation to improve habitat—it really helps guide everything that we do."
During this blitz, biologists captured nine of the 12 bat species native to the southeastern part of the state. While most were common species, establishing this baseline data is vital as wildlife managers monitor the impacts of wind turbines and diseases like White-Nose Syndrome.
To push the research forward, this year's survey introduced a high-tech twist: impossibly tiny Bluetooth tracking collars sponsored by Bat Conservation International and the Biodiversity Research Institute.
"These tags are actually picked up by Bluetooth signals, and your cell phone can actually help pinpoint where these bats are at a certain time if they're within roughly 100 meters of your phone," Corey says.
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The citizen-science network is already paying off. In the weeks since the survey wrapped up, Corey reports that bats tagged at Singletary Lake have radiated across the East Coast, showing up in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and nearly as far north as Virginia.
Looming environmental threats
Despite the survey's success, scientists observed worrying signs on the landscape. An ongoing regional drought noticeably depleted the local insect population, leading to far less bat activity than usual in the mist nets.
Compounding environmental changes is the catastrophic legacy of White-Nose Syndrome, a devastating fungal disease that has fundamentally rewritten North Carolina’s wildlife map.
"The little brown bat before White-Nose Syndrome was second in the state... one of the most numerous bats caught," Corey says. "After White-Nose, we've probably lost well over 90% of that species in the state and they're really hard to come by. So common species may not always be common depending on what new stressor comes in."
It is a stark reminder of how quickly an ecosystem can shift. But with high-tech collars beaming data across the East Coast and scientists dedicated to working the night shift, North Carolina's "flying puppies" are getting the digital safety net they need to thrive.
