Townsend’s big-eared bat is a widespread but easily overlooked resident of Arizona’s caves and rock country. Open occurrence databases hold 101 records for it in the state, of which 99 are iNaturalist observations, a modest count for a bat this distinctive because it spends its days hidden in dark roosts.
A moth hunter of caves and mines
The species is unmistakable in the hand, with a pair of enormous ears nearly as long as its body that it curls back like ram’s horns at rest. It hunts moths with quiet, maneuverable flight, plucking them from the air and even off foliage, and it favors the cooler forested and canyon country of the state. Records concentrate in Cochise, Yavapai, and Pima counties, around the Coronado National Forest and the caves and old mine workings that give it shelter.
Sensitive to disturbance
Observations rise through the warmer months and thin in winter, when the bats gather in cold roosts to hibernate. This is a colonial cave-rooster that abandons a site readily if disturbed, and a single ill-timed visit to a maternity or hibernation roost can scatter a whole colony. That sensitivity is why NatureServe ranks it S3, vulnerable, in Arizona, and why its roosts are best left alone.
Common questions
How do I recognize it? By the ears. No other Arizona bat carries ears that long relative to its small body.
Why so few sightings for a resident species? It roosts deep in caves and mines by day and forages quietly at night, so it is rarely seen even where it is common.
Full species profile
