The long-eared myotis is an occasional entry in Colorado’s mammal records. Open occurrence databases hold 400 records for it here, but only 15 are iNaturalist photos; the rest come from museum specimens and bat surveys. That gap is the signature of a small nocturnal bat, almost never seen and harder still to photograph, identified in the hand by the outsized ears that give it its name.
Where the surveys find it
The state’s records fall mostly in western and northwestern Colorado, in Montezuma and Moffat counties, in forest, canyon, and shrubland that offers rock crevices, loose bark, and quiet buildings to roost in. The long ears are a hunting tool: this bat gleans insects directly off leaves and branches as well as taking them in flight, so it can work cluttered forest where broader-winged bats cannot maneuver.
A summer-only window
Records fall to nothing in the cold months and concentrate in high summer. That rhythm is hibernation, not absence. Like Colorado’s other myotis, it waits out winter in torpor in caves, mines, and rock fissures, and the summer counts capture maternity-season foraging when females and young are ranging over the landscape.
Status in Colorado
The long-eared myotis is native to Colorado and apparently secure, ranked S4 by NatureServe and least concern by the IUCN. Because it looks so much like its close myotis relatives in flight, most confirmed records come from a researcher with a bat in hand or an acoustic detector tuned to its echolocation calls, not from a chance encounter.
Full species profile
