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| ©Michael Durham/Getty Images
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| THREAT Healthy bats, like the one above, hibernate in winter.
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Al Hicks was standing outside an old mine in the Adirondacks, the largest bat hibernaculum, or winter resting place, in New York State.
But bats dying from a mystery illness have been found in the snow in daylight hours.
It was broad daylight in the middle of winter, and bats flew out of the mine about one a minute. Some had fallen to the ground where they flailed around on the snow like tiny wind-broken umbrellas, using the thumbs at the top joint of their wings to gain their balance.
Comment: The University of Utah, as a member of the Advanced National Seismic System (ANSS), maintains a series of seismograph stations at Yellowstone National Park. Recent readings capturing a short series of quakes can be seen at their site.