The long-legged myotis is a fast-flying bat of western forests, built for hawking moths over treetops and mountain streams, and Idaho sits squarely in the middle of its range. The state’s 21 records since 2000 don’t show it that way. They arrive as a thin scatter across 11 counties, from Boundary County at the Canadian border to Bear Lake County on the Utah line, with no cluster anywhere.
That evenness is its own finding. A species with no concentration in the record isn’t necessarily rare; it can simply be one that nobody catches easily. Long-legged myotis fly high and fast, which keeps them out of most mist nets, and they slip through acoustic surveys that can’t always separate them from their close relatives. NatureServe ranks the species vulnerable in Idaho, but the record’s shape argues that the honest description is “under-documented” as much as anything else.
All of the reports fall between June and September, the short mountain summer when the bats are active and researchers are in the field. The Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness holds one of the named records, fitting for a bat that does its best work far from roads.
Full species profile
