Oregon’s occurrence data holds 187 long-legged myotis records, one of the larger counts among the state’s bats, though nearly all of them come from GBIF specimen and survey data rather than casual sightings. Reports concentrate along the Columbia River Gorge, with additional records from Willamette Valley river corridors and regional parks.
Basalt cliffs and conifer edges
Long-legged myotis is a mountain forest bat, recorded most heavily between 5,200 and 7,900 feet in coniferous forest, mixed conifer, and streamside corridors elsewhere in its range. The Columbia River Gorge supplies that same combination close to home: basalt cliff faces, waterfalls, and dense conifer forest stacked along a river corridor. Willamette Valley sightings likely reflect the same bat foraging low over open water rather than describing its usual mountain-forest habitat.
One month holds most of the record
Well over half of Oregon’s records, 129 of 187, land in August alone. That’s a striking concentration, but it lines up with only four coming from iNaturalist against 184 from GBIF, meaning most of Oregon’s data traces back to structured bat surveys rather than casual observers. The August spike likely marks when that survey effort was in the field, not a real jump in the bat’s activity that month.
NatureServe ranks the long-legged myotis S3, Vulnerable, in Oregon, against a G4 status globally, and the species is treated as native to its Oregon range.
Full species profile
