"Citizen scientists" confirm endangered bats are migrating to Arizona

The big picture: Bat aficionados in southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico have been swabbing their hummingbird feeders and sending the samples to the "Species from Feces" lab at Northern Arizona University.

• When bats eat from the feeders, they leave traces of their DNA behind.
• The lab used the swabbed DNA to non-invasively confirm Mexican long-nosed bats had been eating from the feeders.

The intrigue: The bat is difficult to confirm visually because it looks similar to the lesser long-nosed bat, which has long been known to spend time in Arizona.

• Prior to NAU's DNA testing method, the only way to differentiate between the species was to capture and measure the bat's third finger, which could cause extreme stress for the animal.

Zoom in: One of the citizens who swabbed for DNA was Al Bammann of Portal, Arizona near the Chiricahua Mountains.

• "Citizen science means that you're plugging what you discover into something bigger than yourself … It all helps to understand what is there and what is changing," he said in a press release.