The long-legged myotis is a bat in Colorado. Open occurrence databases hold 561 records for it, and like most bats these come almost entirely from museum specimens and survey work rather than photographs. A fast-flying insect hunter that roosts out of sight in trees and rock, it is far more often netted or picked up on a detector than seen.
A bat of the conifer forests
One of the larger western Myotis, the long-legged myotis is tied to montane coniferous and mixed forest, along with pinyon-juniper woodland. It roosts under loose bark, in tree crevices and standing snags, and in rock fissures and buildings, and it forages with strong, direct flight over the canopy and forest openings, taking moths as the bulk of its diet along with flies, beetles, and termites. The Colorado records concentrate on the western slope and southern mountains, with Montezuma County far ahead and further clusters around Moffat, Las Animas, and the high Elk and West Elk ranges near Gunnison. That distribution follows forest cover and roosting structure across the mountains.
A warm-season flier that hibernates
Records fall sharply in winter, the expected signature of a bat that hibernates once flying insects disappear. Activity builds through the warm months and peaks in high summer, when maternity colonies form and each female raises a single pup. This mountain bat stays active at higher and cooler elevations than many of its relatives, but it still depends on undisturbed hibernation sites to survive the cold.
Status in Colorado
The long-legged myotis is native to the state and ranked S5 (secure) by NatureServe, with the IUCN listing it as least concern. It is a forest bat known chiefly to biologists working with mist nets and acoustic surveys, not a species park visitors are likely to pick out.
Full species profile
