Bat-killing fungus is a European import

White-nose infection ups arousal rate during hibernation, depleting energy stores

The same fungal species wiping out hibernating American bats also strikes their European kin — although it doesn’t kill them. But that’s not because the European strain of the fungus that causes white-nose syndrome is less virulent, a new study finds.

This tricolored bat from Missouri is one of the first bats west of the Mississippi River diagnosed with the spreading disease known as white-nose syndrome.