Sampling small quantities of blood from microbats

Abstract

Sampling blood from bats can be valuable Tor a range of studies including antibody detection Tor disease surveillance (Young et al., 1996; Johara et al., 2001; Li et al., 2005), analysis of blood biochemistry (McLaughlin et al., 2007) and populations genetics (Cardinal and Christidis, 2000; Appleton et al., 2004). However, sampling sufficient volumes oT blood, plasma or serum to satisfy a study's requirements from microbats can be challenging.