They are the only bats in North America known to catch caterpillars and are among the very few insect-eating bats that supplement their diets with cactus fruit.Īs with many bat species their predators can include owls, snake, coyotes, feral cats and raccoons.Ĭalifornia leaf-nosed bats become pregnant in the fall. They will capture prey either in flight or off of foliage or the ground. Leaf-nosed bats eat various insects such as crickets,some beetles, grasshoppers, katydids, June beetles, diving beetles and sphinx and other types of moths. The WBWG recommends these species be given the highest priority for funding, planning, and conservation actions. The red/high designation is given to species that are imperiled or are at high risk of imperilment. The California leaf-nosed bat is Federal Species of Concern, an Arizona Game and Fish Department Wildlife of Special Concern, Forest Service Sensitive, and is ranked by the Western Bat Working Group (WBWG) as red/high. In Arizona, the California leaf-nosed bat occurs in Sonoran desert scrub south of the Mogollon Plateau. This species ranges from southern California, southern Nevada, across the southwestern half of Arizona and southward to the southern tip of Baja California, throughout Sonora, northern Sinaloa, and southwestern Chihuahua, Mexico. Roost sites are usually located near foraging areas. The California leaf-nosed bats preferred habitats are caves, mines, and rock shelters, mostly in Sonoran desert scrub. Because their wings are short and broad they are not suited for long distance flight needed for migration. Thanks to Peter Bell for alerting me to this fascinating bat.These interesting bats do not migrate or hibernate. Click on each photo to see the original.) ( photo of a Spix’s disk-winged bat taken near Golfo Ducle, Costa Rica by Alan Wolf.
Suction cups on his feet alone are not enough. Most bats grab a perch with their feet but Spix’s uses suction cups to latch onto the inside of the leaf. When bats roost, they close their fingers to fold their wings.
This one has a claw but Spix’s disk-winged bats have a suction-cup there instead. The joint of the wing is at the bat’s hand/wrist. In the photo above you can see the attic bats’ long fingers. Bats’ thumbs, however, are not inside their wings and their thumbs are short. Their four fingers, encased in thin skin, have evolved to be very long to give the wings their breadth.
#Bat thumbs skin#
To understand this it helps to know a little about bat-wing anatomy.īats’ wings are made of skin stretched from their armpits to their fingertips. These cups look like disks, hence his name.Ībove, the bat is showing off his wing disks but his arms look really weird and stubby. Leaves are smooth and slippery so the bat has evolved suction cups on his wings and feet. Most bats roost head-down but this species roosts head-up so it can exit the leaves quickly. Leaf roosting has made him unusual in other ways, too. He recently made news in the journal Nature because scientists discovered he uses the curled leaves as an ear trumpet. Spix’s disk-winged bat ( Thyroptera tricolor) is far removed from this danger because he lives in the tropics and roosts inside curled leaves. The bats most at risk are those that roost in caves where cool moist temperatures allow the Pseudogymnoascus destructans fungus to grow and infect them. Here in eastern North America we’re gaining a new appreciation for bats, not just as Halloween symbols but as insectivores, because several of our species are threatened with extinction due to white nose syndrome.
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