Bats of Wheat Rice Based Agro-Ecosystem of Punjab, Pakistan

The bat fauna of Pakistan is represented by 8 families, 26 genera and 54 species. Micro-bats are natural hunters and predator of many crop insects. Insectivorous bats also consume large number of mosquitoes in each night from peoples' backyards, and in this way are playing crucial role in balancing night flying insect populations. The enormous insect consumption of bats is valuable to agriculture and particularly to local farmers which have attracted the farmers towards the role of bats as agricultural pest controlling agents. Bats in Pakistan are considered fearsome and loathsome and their positive role in ecosystem has never been acknowledged in the country. Similarly, the biology and ecology of almost all chiropteran species in the country is poorly known. In the country there is serious lack of taxonomic capacity to identify bats on the basis of morphological features. There are a very few researchers who are interested to work on bats but they are poorly equipped to undertake taxonomic work.