Brown bats, the most common species in America, consume up to six hundred mosquitoes per hour. Tiny pipistrelle bats—which weigh no more than a small coin—vacuum up three thousand insects apiece in the course of a night’s swoopings. Without bats there would be a lot more midges in Scotland, chiggers in North America, and fevers in the tropics. Forest trees would be chewed to pieces. Crops would need more pesticides. The natural world would become a very stressed place.
