Brown long-eared bat

Brown long-eared bat
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Chiroptera
Suborder: Microchiroptera
Family: Vespertilionidae
Genus: Plecotus
Species: P. auritus
Binomial name
Plecotus auritus
Synonyms

Vespertilio auritus Linnaeus, 1758

The brown long-eared bat or common long-eared bat (Plecotus auritus) is a small Eurasian bat. It has distinctive ears, long and with a distinctive fold. It is extremely similar to the much rarer grey long-eared bat which was only validated as a distinct species in the 1960s.

An adult brown long-eared bat has a body length of 4.5-4.8 cm, a tail of 4.1-4.6 cm, and a forearm length of 4-4.2 cm. The ears are 3.3-3.9 cm in length, and readily distinguish the long-eared bats from most other bat species.

They are relatively slow flyers compared to other bat species.

Habitat

It is found throughout Europe, with the exception of Greece, southern Italy and southern Spain. The UK distribution can be found on the National Biodiversity Network website and can be seen here.

Brown long eared bats regularly utilise buildings roosting in undisturbed roof spaces either singly, in crevices and timber, or in clusters around chimneys and ridge ends. This species also roosts in treeholes, bat boxes and caves which are important as winter hibernation sites. The roosts in trees may be close to the ground. Emergence from roost sites usually only occurs in the dark, around an hour after sunset.[2]

It hunts above woodland, often by day, and mostly for moths, gleaning insects from leaves and bark. Prey is probably detected by sight and sound using the large eyes and ears, not by echolocation. A study by Eklöf and Jones (2003)[3] demonstrated the ability of the brown long-eared bat to visually detect prey. Under experimental conditions, brown long-eared bats showed a preference for situations where sonar and visual cues were available. However, visual cues were more important than sonar cues and the bats were unable to detect prey items using only sonar cues. Brown long-eared bats have relatively large eyes and ears and it is likely that visual information and passive listening allow this species to detect prey in cluttered environments.[4]

Echolocation

Echolocation is used to find prey. The frequencies used by this bat species for echolocation lie between 27–56 kHz, have most energy at 35 kHz and have an average duration of 2.5 ms. However unlike most bats Long Eared can hunt by hearing alone. Their hearing is sensitive enough to hear a moth in flight. This hunting strategy evolved because prey items, namely certain moth species evolved the ability to hear the echolocation and take evading action. T[5][6]

References

  1. ↑ Linnæus, Carl (1758). Systema naturæ per regna tria naturæ, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis. Tomus I (in Latin) (10th ed.). Holmiæ: Laurentius Salvius. p. 32. Retrieved 22 November 2012.
  2. ↑ Russ, J. 1999. The Bats of Britain and Ireland. Echolocation calls, sound analysis, and species identification. Powys: Alana Books.
  3. ↑ Eklöf, J. & Jones, G. 2003. Use of vision in prey detection by brown long-eared bats, Plecotus auritus. Animal Behaviour, 66, 949-953.
  4. ↑ "The Bats of Britain". www.bio.bris.ac.uk. Retrieved 2017-03-16.
  5. ↑ Parsons, S. and Jones, G. (2000) 'Acoustic identification of twelve species of echo-locating bat by discriminant function analysis and artificial neural networks.' J Exp Biol., 203: 2641-2656.
  6. ↑ Bristol, M.K., Boesch, R. and Flickerecfeffew, P.F. (2004) 'Variability in echolocation call design of 26 Swiss bat species: Consequences, limits and options for automated field identification with a synergic pattern recognition approach.' Mammalia., 68 (4): 307-32.
Sources
  • Woodland Management For Bats Guide
  • Chiroptera Specialist Group (1996). "Plecotus auritus". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2006. International Union for Conservation of Nature. Retrieved 12 May 2006.
  • Stevens, Martin (2005): The role of eyespots as anti-predator mechanisms, principally demonstrated in the Lepidoptera. Biol. Rev. 80(4): 573–588. doi:10.1017/S1464793105006810 (HTML abstract)
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