Tennessee’s 104 southeastern myotis records are a West Tennessee story. Haywood County leads with 29, and Shelby, Chester, Hardin, and Gibson counties push the western tally far past the rest of the state. The named places read the same way, with Meeman-Shelby Forest and Shiloh logging 12 records each. This is a bat of bottomland hardwood and slow, dark water, and the Hatchie River country is its Tennessee heartland.
The bottomland advantage
The Hatchie is one of the last big unchannelized rivers in the region, and its swampy, forested bottom is exactly what this bat needs: hollow trees and caves for roosting, still sloughs and oxbows to hunt over. Reelfoot Lake’s cypress water and Hatchie National Wildlife Refuge extend the same habitat north and west, which is why they anchor the suggested viewing list. Where the river still floods its woods, this bat still has a home.
A late-summer crest
Reports crest in August and September, when nursery colonies disperse and the year’s young join the hunt over the water. This species often raises twins, a rarity among American bats, so late-summer skies over a good bottomland can hold a lot of new wings. Winter records are scarce because these bats hibernate deep in caves and hollow trees where nobody is counting noses.
Status in Tennessee
NatureServe ranks the southeastern myotis S3, vulnerable, in Tennessee. It’s native, and its dependence on big, intact bottomland makes it a quiet indicator: where the river forest is healthy enough to hold this bat, it’s usually healthy for nearly everything else that lives there too.
