North Carolina Week: Evening Bat (Nycticeius humeralis)
All week on The Daily Mammal we’re looking at mammals of North Carolina. Evening bats, like this one here, live throughout the eastern United States in the lower elevations, and they’re particularly common in the southeastern states, like North Carolina. They’re similar to brown bats but much smaller—their bodies are only about four inches long and their wingspans are less than a foot. They roost mainly in buildings, but also in tree cavities and underneath loose bark; you may find them in a bat house every now and then. They eat insects—they love moths, junebugs, and beetles.
It’s rare to spot a male evening bat in the northern parts of its range, and we’re not completely sure exactly what the bats do during the winter. Reports of winter sightings in the south indicate that they probably migrate. In the short time I’ve been working on The Daily Mammal, I have been continually surprised by the things we don’t know, the mammals we’ve never seen, the adaptations we can’t explain, the behavior we’re not sure about. Maybe it’s because there’s so much flashy news about technology and quantum physics and whatnot that I’ve tended to assume that we know pretty much what there is to know about the more basic facts of life on earth. It’s so amazing and magical that there’s still so much mystery to figure out just by looking closely.
Great concept. I love it. I’ll bookmark the site.
The Adams Family
i love this creature
A quare baste.
great goal !!! and this one is my fav – I live in Austin where one million bats migrate to every year and live under the congress street bridge – it is a very cool site to see them take flight each night for their evening flight
Thank you so much, peeps! I really appreciate the support. I will need it to get through the next 14 years!
Randi, I’ve only seen pictures of the bats flying from under the bridge in Austin, but I really want to see them in person someday.
The Congress St bat show is one of the most amazing things I’ve seen. We’ll go this year JR. Love the bats of course and love you too
What a great picture. I really liked the way you showed the mother and baby,