Utah’s 57 big free-tailed bat records connect cliff-rich Grand Staircase–Escalante with scattered sites farther north. Long, narrow wings suit fast, high-altitude flight, and the tail projects well beyond the membrane, an obvious distinction from most local bats in hand. Deep rock crevices provide daytime roosts near open airspace used for hunting moths.
June produces the most records, when warm nights support insects and acoustic surveys are most effective. Detector passes and access to canyon roosts shape that pulse, so it is not a count of bats. The species can travel long distances from a roost in one night, meaning a recorded feeding bat need not indicate a nearby colony.
Full species profile
