Caprock Canyons State Park Briscoe County
Caprock Canyons State Park is located in the Panhandle, east of Silverton. About 4.5 miles from the park's parking area lies Clarity Tunnel, a 700-foot-long railroad tunnel that is home to a colony of several hundred thousand Mexican free-tailed bats.
The Mexican free-tailed bat (Tadarida brasiliensis) is a medium sized bat. Their bodies are about 9 centimeters in length, and they weigh about 15 grams. Their ears are wide and set apart to help them find prey with echolocation. Its fur color varies from dark brown to gray.
Mexican free-tailed bats live in caves in the southern United States, Mexico, Central America, the West Indies, central Chile and Argentina. Their colonies are the largest congregations of mammals in the world! The largest colony is found at Bracken Cave, north of San Antonio, Texas, with nearly 20 million bats. The bats of Bracken Cave can eat up to 250 tons of insects per night!
When baby free-tail bats are born, their mothers leave them behind in the cave while they go out to hunt insects. You would expect that a bat-mother would have trouble locating her own baby (called a pup) among millions of other noisy pups. But it only takes her a few minutes to do so. She remembers where she left her pup, and recognizes its "cry" and smell.
This species is very important for the control of pest-insect populations. But its populations have fallen because of the use of pesticides and the destruction of their roosting caves.
In the northeastern Mexican state of Nuevo Leon, La Boca Cave once contained the largest bat population in the world. Over the last 10 years, 95% of the caves bats have been lost. To save the bats that remain, an environmental education program was started in the area. Bat Conservation International and the Program for Conservation of Mexican and North American Migratory Bats are working to help to restore the bats of La Boca Cave.