Louisiana carries 135 documented records for Rafinesque’s big-eared bat, clustered around Kisatchie National Forest, Black Bayou Lake National Wildlife Refuge, and D’Arbonne National Wildlife Refuge.
Old hollow trees in the bottomland hardwoods
This bat roosts in hollow trees, old cisterns, and abandoned buildings rather than caves, and it favors bottomland hardwood forest where large old black tupelos and oaks still stand hollow enough to shelter it. Black Bayou Lake and D’Arbonne National Wildlife Refuges, both near Monroe in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain, sit in exactly that kind of mature bottomland forest, while Kisatchie National Forest’s upland pine hills are a less typical setting, likely used along hardwood draws where a handful of old hollow trees persist among the pines.
Gleaning moths from the leaves, not the air
Rather than chasing insects in open flight the way many bats do, it gleans moths and other insects directly off leaves and bark, a hunting style suited to working close to the hollow trees and dense understory it roosts in.
Status in Louisiana
NatureServe ranks Rafinesque’s big-eared bat S3, vulnerable, in Louisiana, tied closely to the loss of the old hollow trees it depends on for roosting. It’s native to the state, and USGS NAS doesn’t list it as nonindigenous.
