Each night around sunset , in one of the most upscale parts of the city, the bats get ready to fly.

They're Mexican free-tailed bats, a small species found up and down North, Central and South America. And from May to October, you can find them at the Phoenix Bat Cave .

It's not really a cave. It's a flood control tunnel located near Camelback Road and 40th Street, behind Phoenix Country Day School. But it is the summer home of a colony of around 10,000 bats.

The tunnel was completed in 1994, and the bats took up residence fairly quickly thereafter.

Angie McIntire, a bat specialist with the Arizona Game and Fish Department, says they've known about the colony since the ’90s.

"It’s within a neighborhood. I’m pretty sure some folks from the neighborhood let us know that they were se

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