Ament Cave in Cookeville, Tennessee, is home to approximately 15,000 federally endangered gray bats during the summer. The cave is one of only a few caves in the country that is used by gray bats as a maternity site (that is, as a site to raise their young). Once born, the young bats do not leave the cave for several weeks. After developing the ability to fly, the juvenile bats join their parents on feeding forays during the night thus helping to reduce the local insect population.

Researchers have found that an individual bat typically eats more than half of its body weight in flying insects per night. A nursing adult bat may eat its weight in small flying insects in a night, or as many as 4,500 insects.