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Scientists working to understand the lethal bat disease called white-nose syndrome (WNS) now have a new non-lethal tool to identify bats with WNS lesions - UV light. 

When a long-wave UV light is directed at the wings of bats with white-nose syndrome, it produces a distinctive orange-yellow fluorescence. 

"When we first saw this fluorescence of a bat wing in a cave, we knew we were on to something," said Greg Turner from Pennsylvania Game Commission, who has been using this technique since 2010, according to press release. "It was difficult to have to euthanize bats to diagnose WNS when the disease itself was killing so many. This was a way to get a good indication of which bats were infected and take a small biopsy for testing rather than sacrifice the whole bat."

The fungal disease WNS has caused death of millions of bats in the United States. The syndrome is caused by the fungus Pseudogymnoascus (Geomyces) destructans (Pd).

White nose syndrome was first observed in New York during the winter of 2006 and since then the disease has spread to 25 US states and 5 Canadian provinces. 

"Ultraviolet light was first used in 1925 to look for ringworm fungal infections in humans," said Carol Meteyer, USGS scientist and one of the lead authors on the paper. "The fact that this technique could be transferred to bats and have such remarkable precision for indicating lesions positive for Pd invasion is very exciting."

The research has been published in the Journal of Wildlife Diseases.