A little brown bat hanging upside down with a white nose

White-nose syndrome has devastated bats—but some are developing immunity

A fungal disease has wiped out bats throughout North America, but hopeful research suggests one species may be developing resistance to this pandemic.

A little brown bat displaying characteristic signs of white-nose syndrome, caused by a pathogenic fungus that has devastated bats throughout much of North America.
Photograph by Joseph R. Hoyt

North America’s bats are facing their own devastating pandemic. White-nose syndrome, a disease caused by a cold-loving fungus, has killed more than 6 million bats since it was first detected in an upstate New York cave in 2006. It threatens some species, such as the northern long-eared bat, with extinction.

The fungus, aptly named Pseudogymnoascus destructans, has since spread across the U.S. and Canada—carried both by the routine movements of bats and by hitchhiking on cave-curious humans. In its wake, white-nose syndrome has left carnage: Upwards of 90 percent of some regional bat populations have been wiped out.

“White-nose is so much worse for bats than coronaviruses are to humans,” says Kate Langwig, a

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