We toured on the first day the cave was open since November, and there were still bats hibernating. I was permitted to photograph them if I didn't use a flash or shine a light directly at them. The light to the left is from one of the LED flashlights and was very weak; this was the best of several shots at 1600 ISO and considerable post processing. The bat in the picture is one of 2 or 3 species that eat insects and are very common in Missouri. The larger grey bats, the ones you see in horror movies, used to number in the thousands in the cave; at one point our tour guide stopped and showed us an entire hill made of bat guano. However, the cave was also used for parties in the 19th century and the grey bats were driven away by people who saw them as nuisances or evil underground creatures. Since the cave has become a protected site a small population has come back and are kept in a section of the cave off-limits to visitors.