© Marvin Moriarty/U.S. Fish and Wildlife ServiceThis little brown bat is seen hibernating in Greeley Mine, Vermont with the white fungus visible on its muzzle, wings, and ears.
A spreading plague has killed more than a million bats across the eastern U.S., and wildlife experts have no clue how to stop it.
As it rolls across the country and into Canada, the mysterious fungus threatens to disrupt the ecological balance, which could result in the spread of bugs that destroy crops and force swatting barbequers to flee indoors.
Called White-Nose Syndrome because of the white substance found on the noses of bats, it causes bats to move around and burn calories during the winter months when they should be hibernating and reserving energy. Scientists are not exactly sure why the fungus affects bats, where it came from originally, or how to stop its spread. One thing is for sure -- bat populations are being decimated by the fungus. Among some bat species, the mortality rate is 99 percent.
"There might be regional extinctions of particular bat species," said Noelle Rayman, assistant national White-Nose Syndrome coordinator at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, told ABCNews.com.
Comment: Funnel Cloud captured on Forth Mountain, just outside Wexford Town on the 22nd of July 2010 at 14:51 GMT