The tricolored bat is Ohio’s smallest bat species, and like the little brown bat, it’s been hit hard by white-nose syndrome, the fungal disease that has devastated hibernating bat populations across the eastern United States since it reached Ohio. The state’s 238 records carry real weight because of that: this isn’t a routine backyard bat anymore, it’s a species whose numbers have fallen sharply enough to earn Ohio’s most serious conservation rank.
Records rise through spring, peaking from April through June with another bump in August, rather than clustering in one tight window. The spring peak likely captures bats just emerging from hibernation and becoming active and visible again, ahead of a smaller secondary rise around the August maternity period. Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge, Killdeer Plains Wildlife Area, and Mentor Marsh represent the kind of open, insect-rich foraging habitat this bat uses, even though its more critical habitat, the caves and mines where it hibernates, isn’t reflected in a summer-leaning observation map like this one. Ohio’s NatureServe rank is S1, critically imperiled, and the tricolored bat is native to the state.
Full species profile
