The Ozark big-eared bat once lived in caves in Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. However, they have apparently abandoned their Missouri habitat due to human encroachment and cave disturbance.

Bats communicate by ultrasound, sound waves at frequencies above human hearing, but they can also make sounds audible to people. “It sounds like a high pitched twittering to our ears ...

It is caused by the fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans, which grows around the bats' noses, mouths, and ears. The disease was ... has led to more than 1,000 human infant deaths.