Why are there so many mosquitoes this year? One answer: fewer bats

One of the reasons there have been so many mosquitoes this year is because there are fewer bats in the state eating them.

Bats eat lots of bugs, and in Massachusetts and New England there is one small bat that has a voracious appetite. The little brown bat can eat up to 1,000 insects a night - including EEE-carrying mosquitoes.

However, in recent years the bat population has drastically dropped.

"Bats are insectivores and they come out at night to feed," said Kirsten Fletcher, a bat expert. "The more bats you have, the less insects there will be out there."

The little brown bat, once the most populous in Massachusetts, is dying at an alarming rate while mosquitoes are thriving.

Related: DPH: Third person in Mass. dies of EEE

"They were coming from caves well in advance of when they should during hibernation," Fletcher said.

A white fungus called white-nosed-syndrome rouses the hibernating bat too early. They come out during winter when there is no food and die of starvation. It’s decimated the population.

"One of the issues with bats is that they don't have a lot of offspring annually," Fletcher said.

That means it will take years for the population to grow and stabilize. Right now, Mother Nature’s major Massachusetts insect hunter is unable to keep up with a mosquito population that exploded.

According to the Massachusetts Audubon Society, one bat can catch 600 insects per hour, while a BU scientist tells us that all bats within Route 128 consume 13 tons of insects each summer.

>>>MORE: Latest Mass. EEE news

With a major player in the fight against EEE on the sidelines for a while, the only hope is that temperatures drop sooner rather than later.

Cox Media Group