The little brown bat’s Ohio records climb through summer to an August high, well above every other month, then drop to almost nothing after September. That’s the signature of maternity colonies: females roost together to raise pups through early summer, and once the young are flying, colonies become far easier for observers to detect and record. Outside that window, sightings are scarce. Summit County, home to Cuyahoga Valley National Park, holds 29 of the records and gives a sense of the wooded river and wetland edge this species forages over, though where it actually roosts and hibernates is a separate question the records don’t fully answer.
Ohio’s 72 records sit against a grim backdrop. Little brown bats have crashed across the eastern United States, Ohio included, since white-nose syndrome, a fungal disease that attacks hibernating bats, arrived in the region and killed the large majority of the population at many hibernation sites. Ohio’s NatureServe rank is S1, critically imperiled, and the species is native to the state. The sharp summer spike in records is a real window into an active maternity season, not evidence the population has recovered.
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