Montana’s California myotis records pool in the western valleys, and one county dominates: Ravalli, the Bitterroot, with the bulk of the state’s reports. Lincoln County in the far northwest adds most of the rest. Both are dry-montane country by Montana standards, ponderosa and Douglas-fir slopes with rock outcrops and open water, the cover this small bat prefers across the interior West.
The Bitterroot’s lead is partly habitat and partly effort. Bat workers have run detectors and nets in the Missoula area for years, and a species usually identified by its echolocation calls only gets counted where someone is listening. Counties without records aren’t counties without bats; they’re mostly counties without surveys.
September holds the most reports, with a smaller April rise, bracketing the bat’s active season at both ends. Spring records mark emergence from hibernation, when bats are hungry and flying low; the fall ones come from the swarming season around roosts, when numbers bunch up and capture is likeliest. NatureServe considers the species apparently secure in Montana. Given how thin the record is outside two valleys, the cautious summary is that the state’s myotis are probably more widespread than the reports show.
Full species profile
