Catching bats is a difficult task—they're small, they fly and they blend into the night when they're out after dark. That can make studying these mammals challenging, despite their ubiquity: bats are found on nearly every part of the planet except the most extreme hot and cold, and they're all over Arizona.

Catching bats is a difficult task—they’re small, they fly and they blend into the night when they’re out after dark. That can make studying these mammals challenging, despite their ubiquity: bats are found on nearly every part of the planet except the most extreme hot and cold, and they’re all over Arizona.

Scientists, including Faith Walker, an associate research professor in the School of Forestry, are looking for other ways to locate which bats live where, how they migrate and where they’ve been. Recent efforts in this work have led them to pulling DNA directly from the air and tracking bats through environmental, or eDNA.