The big free-tailed bat is one of Colorado’s rarest recorded mammals. Open occurrence databases hold only 13 records for it here, a tiny tally that reflects how seldom this high-flying, hard-to-catch bat is documented rather than any true measure of its comings and goings.
A powerful flier at the edge of its range
This is a large, narrow-winged member of the free-tailed bat family, built for fast, sustained flight high above the ground where few observers ever see it. Its stronghold lies far to the south, and Colorado sits at the northern fringe of its wandering range. The handful of records trace the Western Slope canyon country around Mesa and Montrose counties, with a scatter east along the plains, wherever tall cliffs and rock crevices offer the daytime roosts it depends on.
Why the record is so thin
Reports appear almost entirely in the warm months and vanish in winter, when the bat is thought to move south rather than stay and hibernate. Free-tailed bats forage on the wing at heights that put them beyond casual notice, and they rarely enter the buildings where people meet other bats, so even a summer visitor leaves little trace. NatureServe ranks the species S1, critically imperiled, in Colorado, a status that speaks as much to how few confirmed records exist as to genuine scarcity.
Common questions
Is it actually rare in Colorado? It is genuinely uncommon at the edge of its range, and it is also very hard to detect, so the small record understates how often it passes through.
Where would one turn up? In canyon and mesa country with tall cliffs for roosting, mostly on the Western Slope.
Full species profile
