New research suggests bats have "lunar phobia"

Scientists in Mexico have suggested that moonlight scares bats into hiding in the shadows, after collating studies of bat behaviour from all over the world.

They discovered that the activity of bats in moonlit habitats decreased on bright nights, compared to bats that live and forage in darker places. This "lunar phobia' - fear of the moon may be explained by a lack of feeding opportunities and a higher risk of being preyed upon in moonlight.

Published in the journal Mammalian Biology, the findings have been described as "the first reliable evaluation of the lunar phobia phenomenon."

Mr Romeo Saldana-Vasquez, a biologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and lead author of the study, commented: "Evidence that the activity of bats decreased with increasing intensity of moonlight was contradictory, so that's why we decided to conduct this research."

The analysis concluded that lunar phobia is "common among bats" and showed that the reduction in activity in moonlight differed depending on habitat type. One exception, however, was found to be bats that fly above the treetops: these species did not tend to decrease their activity on moonlit nights.