Arkansas’s occurrence databases hold 19 records of Rafinesque’s big-eared bat, an animal whose ears run nearly as long as its head and body combined. Almost all of that record sits in the state’s bottomland hardwood forest rather than its mountains.
Old trees over old caves
Unlike most of Arkansas’s other bats, this one rarely uses caves at all. It roosts in hollow trees, abandoned buildings, and old cisterns, which is why White River National Wildlife Refuge, one of the largest blocks of intact bottomland hardwood forest left in the Mississippi Delta, holds the state’s only named record location. Ozark National Forest and Ouachita National Forest round out the range, both places that still carry old hollow trees among younger stands.
A moth-gleaner, not an open-air hunter
Rather than chasing insects through open air the way many bats do, it gleans moths and other insects directly off leaves and bark, a technique that keeps it working close to the forest canopy it roosts in. Arkansas’s records peak in June, when maternity colonies are active and roosts get their most attention from observers.
Status in Arkansas
NatureServe ranks Rafinesque’s big-eared bat S3, vulnerable, in Arkansas, and it’s native to the state. Losing large hollow trees, whether to logging or storm damage, removes the roosts this bat depends on even where the forest around them looks intact, which makes the old growth inside places like White River National Wildlife Refuge worth more to this species than the acreage alone suggests.
