Montana has just one California myotis record since 2000, from Missoula County. Older and undated records lean on Ravalli County, the Bitterroot, with most of the rest from Lincoln County in the far northwest. 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.
That older lean on the Bitterroot 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.
The lone modern record dates to July, which can’t show the bat’s season on its own. NatureServe considers the species apparently secure in Montana. Given how thin the modern record is, the cautious summary is that the state’s myotis are probably more widespread than the reports show.
Full species profile
