Silver-haired bats are among the most migratory bats in North America, spending summers roosting alone under loose bark or in tree cavities and moving seasonally rather than staying put year-round. Texas’s 66 records track that pattern reasonably well: counts climb in January, May, and again from October through December, a shape that looks more like migratory movement passing through the state than a single breeding season.
Big Bend National Park and Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge, both places with caves, rivers, and forest cover, anchor most of the records, which fits a bat that needs water and tree roosts more than open desert. NatureServe ranks it S4, Apparently Secure, in Texas, a comfortable but not top-tier rank consistent with an occasional species here rather than a common one.
Only 14 of the 66 records come from iNaturalist, so most of what Texas knows about this bat still comes from netting surveys and specimen records rather than casual observation.
Full species profile
