Evening Bat
Nycticeius humeralis

The evening bat is a small tree bat that can be found foraging for insects at dawn and dusk.

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Evening bat. (Photo courtesy of redtail5/iNaturalist CC BY-NC)

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Appearance

The evening bat resembles a big brown bat but is smaller and measures 3-5 inches in length. It has black or dark brown fur which unlike other tree bats does not cover its wings or tail. The evening bat has tough, leathery skin, small ears and a pungent smell that distinguishes it from many other bats.

Feeding

The evening bat forages for night-flying insects, beetles, flies and moths in the dawn and dusk hours.

Predators

Owls, hawks, snakes, housecats, and raccoons are predators to bats.

Reproduction and life cycle

Evening bats use hollow trees for nesting sites and normally have two young that are born in late-May to mid-June. The female nurses its young for at least two weeks and the young are fully weaned by nine weeks. The female bat rubs a scent from a gland on its young, so that it can be recognized from other young. After the first two weeks of nursing a female may nurse young that are not its own.

Males are solitary in the late summer and fall, but females create maternity colonies that range from 25- 900 individuals. Young can fly after roughly three weeks and reach adult size in about a month. The evening bat has a relatively short life span of between two and five years.

Did you know?

  • A colony of 300 evening bats is estimated to eat 6.3 million insects per summer.
  • Evening bat populations appear to be stable but deforestation is leading to an increased number of bats roosting in building attics, wooden structures and other manmade structures.

Sources and additional information

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