#vespertilionoidea

📍 Location: Chapel Hill, North Carolina

🗓 Date: October 4, 2022

🐾 Media: Image

🌿 Species: Eastern Red Bat (Lasiurus borealis)

📝 Notes: Small tree-roosting bat commonly found in forest edges, clearings, and suburban areas with tree cover. Recognized by its reddish-orange fur and furred tail membrane. Often solitary or found roosting in foliage rather than caves or buildings.

Typically active at dusk, feeding on flying insects such as moths, beetles, and other nocturnal invertebrates. May be observed in flight at twilight or roosting camouflaged among leaves during the day.

This specimen was dead upon discovery.

Vesper bat (Vespertilioninae)

Cluster of endangered Indiana bats (via USFWS Midwest Region)

Indiana bats are known as social animals that don’t need much personal space. In fact, they’re known to cluster so tightly that 500 bats can fit within a square foot!

Naked bat (Cheiromeles torquatus)

Ozark Big-eared Bat Cluster (via USFWS Midwest Region)

Healthy Virginia big-eared bat (via U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Northeast Region)

Single healthy Virginia big-eared bat in Hellhole, Pendleton County, WV

Little brown bat cluster (via U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Northeast Region)

Little brown bats at Aeolus Cave.