Natural Highlights: Big Brown Bat
The Big Brown Bat (Eptesicus fuscus) is one of the most common bat species in the Mid-South. Its common name is accurate – if not very imaginative. It is indeed a brown bat, furred all over in lush reddish brown, with blackish ears, wings, and snout. The Big Brown Bat is larger than most of the other bats in the area, though still not very big, weighing less than an ounce, with a nose to tail length of about 5 inches. Its wingspan is an impressive 12.8 to 13.8 inches, wide for a microbat, but not for one of the flying foxes (megabats) found in other parts of the world which have wingspans up to 5.6 feet! Only microbats (Suborder Microchiroptera) live in North America. Megabats (Suborder Megachiroptera) are quite different and live in the tropics of the Old World.
The Big Brown Bat is a generalist, comfortable in many kinds of habitat including suburban backyards, so that people are more likely to see this bat, perhaps warming up on a brick wall, than many other species. They will utilize bat boxes installed to attract them, but also hollow trees, shaggy tree bark, culverts, caves, and buildings (especially if there are no better sites available to them).
Brown Bats consume a wide variety of night-flying insects including moths and mosquitoes, but they are beetle specialists. Many agricultural pests are beetles - the cucumber beetle, for example, is the bane of many gardeners – and Big Brown Bats help to regulate beetle populations, an ecosystem service of enormous economic value. Like all of our microbats, Big Browns echolocate, emitting repeated clicks and interpreting the sound waves which bounce back to their specialized ears from objects in their flight path. This remarkable ability allows bats to locate prey precisely in complete darkness while also avoiding trees and other objects.
It is true that bats can carry rabies, so contact with them is best avoided. The actual incidence of rabies in bats is quite low, even in the small number of bats submitted to labs for testing.
For more information on bats, check out Chris Grow’s excellent webinar on our YouTube channel, and visit the links below.
https://www.batcon.org/bat/eptesicus-fuscus/
The Big Brown Bat (Eptesicus fuscus) is one of the most common bat species in the Mid-South.
