Indiana holds only 4 records of the evening bat from 2000 on, all research-grade iNaturalist observations, and the most recent confirmed sighting dates back to 2019. That thin, aging record fits a species whose range is centered far to the south.
A warm-country bat at the edge of its range
Evening bats favor bottomland hardwoods, wooded edges, and warm buildings across the Gulf Coast and southern Plains, and Indiana sits well north of that core range. The state’s few recent records come from Bartholomew, Hendricks, and Marion counties in central Indiana, consistent with a marginal foothold toward the northern limit of where this bat can find warm enough summer roosts to raise young.
Summer records tied to maternity colonies
Three of the four Indiana records fall in June and August, when female evening bats gather in tree cavities and warm building crevices to raise pups, and the fourth in December. That maternity-season crowding is when the species is most likely to turn up, whether in a bat house, an attic inspection, or a roost survey, though four records are too few to call a firm pattern.
Status in Indiana
NatureServe ranks the evening bat S3, vulnerable, in Indiana, a step below its secure G5 rating globally. That gap is typical of a species holding on at the cool edge of a much larger warm-climate range, where local numbers run thinner and more exposed than the species’ broad continental picture suggests.
Full species profile
