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This is a thermal infrared image of flying Brazilian free-tailed bats in Texas. Key to false colors: yellow (warmest), red (warm), green (cool) and blue (coolest). By the dark of the Halloween new moon, some National Science Foundation-funded scientists look at what's hovering just above the ground.
Far from ghost-busting, however, the researchers use sophisticated technology like Doppler weather radar to study the aerosphere--the air and the organisms that migrate and feed within it. Biologists and atmospheric scientists engage in the study of aeroecology: how and why airborne organisms--bats, birds, arthropods and microbes--depend on the support of the atmosphere closest to Earth's surface.Image credit: Thomas Kunz, Boston University
