The Indiana bat carries the state’s name for a reason: this is where the species was first described, and today it’s one of the thinnest records in Indiana’s own mammal atlas, just 194 entries, almost all from GBIF specimen and survey data rather than casual photos.
Named here, and still tied to these same caves
Naturalists first described the Indiana bat in the 1920s from bats found in Wyandotte Cave, in the unglaciated Southern Hills and Knobs of south-central Indiana. Nearly a century later, the state’s records still cluster around that same karst country: Hoosier National Forest, Brown County State Park, and Clifty Falls State Park all sit in or near the limestone cave region the species depends on for winter hibernation.
Why February holds most of the state’s records
Records spike sharply in February and stay elevated into early winter, while spring and summer months carry almost none. That pattern reflects how the species is actually counted: biologists conduct coordinated hibernacula surveys during the coldest weeks of the year, when thousands of bats cluster together in a handful of caves and can be counted directly, while the same bats scattered under loose tree bark each summer are far harder to confirm and log.
Status in Indiana
NatureServe ranks the Indiana bat S1, critically imperiled, in the state that gave it its name, far below its Near Threatened rating globally. Indiana’s cave-hibernating colonies have been hit hard by white-nose syndrome, and because so much of the species winters in so few sites, damage to a single cave can affect a very large share of the state’s bats at once.
Full species profile
