Silver-haired bats don’t cluster in caves the way many Indiana bats do. They roost alone or in small groups under loose bark or inside cracks in dead and dying trees, which keeps them easy to miss even where they’re regularly present. Marion County, around Indianapolis, accounts for 12 of Indiana’s records, and the rest scatter across eight more counties from Lake and St. Joseph in the north to Scott in the south, a spread that traces wooded corridors rather than any single roosting hotspot.
Records carry two peaks, April and a sharper one in October, together making up most of the state’s 32 sightings. That spring-and-fall shape fits one of the most migratory bats in North America moving through Indiana on its way to and from wintering grounds rather than settling in for the season. NatureServe ranks the species S3, vulnerable, in Indiana, a step below its more secure global standing.
Full species profile
