North Carolina’s records for this long-eared bat cluster in the Coastal Plain swamp forests of the northeastern corner of the state, especially around the Great Dismal Swamp, where old-growth blackgum and tupelo trees still stand in wet bottomland. That region’s mix of standing water and hollow hardwoods is exactly the kind of shelter this species depends on.
It roosts by day in hollow gum trees and, where those are scarce, in abandoned buildings and old cisterns scattered through Coastal Plain farmland, then flies out at dusk to glean moths and other insects from nearby vegetation. Losing large hollow trees to logging removes that shelter even when feeding habitat nearby stays intact.
Records run through the year with a June peak in the current data, and NatureServe ranks the species vulnerable in North Carolina. A modest record count for a bat this reliant on scattered, specific roost sites says more about how hard it is to find than about how widespread it actually is.
