The lesser long-nosed bat is one of Arizona’s great seasonal travelers, a nectar-feeding bat that follows desert blooms north out of Mexico each year. Open occurrence databases hold 546 records for it in the state, 201 of them iNaturalist observations, a notable number for an animal that flies only after dark and once sat on the federal endangered list.
A migration timed to the flowers
This bat does not linger in Arizona through winter. Its records run nearly empty in the cold months, then climb through spring and explode in late summer. That curve is a feeding schedule written in pollen. Females arrive in the southern mountains in spring as saguaro and organ pipe cactus open their night flowers, then the bats shift to the agave bloom of the higher slopes as summer wears on, which is why late-summer records tower over the rest of the year. The bat drinks nectar and laps pollen with a long tongue and slender snout, and in doing so it pollinates the very plants that feed it.
Where the sky islands hold them
The records concentrate in the southeastern corner of the state, in Cochise, Pima, and Santa Cruz counties, the country of the Huachuca, Santa Rita, and neighboring ranges. These “sky island” mountains rise out of the desert with caves and abandoned mines for roosts and agave-covered hillsides for food, and the bats gather in large maternity colonies before the return south. NatureServe rates the species imperiled in Arizona, and it was removed from the US endangered list only recently, after decades of recovery work, so these roosts still draw close conservation attention.
Common questions
Can you see one at a feeder? Yes. In late summer these bats famously drain hummingbird feeders overnight in southern Arizona towns, one of the easiest ways for a resident to know the migration has arrived.
Full species profile
