Texas pallid bat records cluster in the Trans-Pecos, at Big Bend National Park, Guadalupe Mountains National Park, and the Davis Mountains, where desert basins meet canyon walls and sky-island slopes. Rock crevices and old mine shafts there give the bat secure day roosts close to open ground it can hunt over after dark.
Unlike bats that sweep insects out of open air, pallid bats often drop onto scorpions, centipedes, and Jerusalem crickets moving on the ground, tracking them by sound with oversized ears rather than echolocation alone. Texas reports peak in May and again from July into October, likely tracking maternity-colony activity and warm-season insect abundance more than a true population count.
With 547 Texas records, the species sits in the occasional tier among the state’s mammals, and NatureServe rates it secure (S5) statewide, a steadier picture than some of its Trans-Pecos bat neighbors carry.
Full species profile
