Hamilton's native bats

Appearance

• Dark brown to black fur.
• Limbs and membranes virtually hairless.
• Small, weighing 8-14g with a wingspan of about 25cm.

Diet

• Feed on flying insects like moths, beetles, mayflies, midges and mosquitoes.

Breeding

• Breeding females give birth to one pup per year and carry juveniles during feeding flights until they reach adolescence at around 4-6 weeks.

Behaviour

• Use echolocation to identify food and other objects while flying.
• Rest by day and feed by night.
• Roost in small cavities in old or large trees, including dead trees.
• Frequently switch roosts.
• Hang upside down and hold onto roost with claws of one or both feet.
• Social animals, with sometimes between 10 to 50 bats roosting and feeding together.
• Can fly long distances and may have large home ranges.
• Regularly move between forest fragments to feed and roost.
• During the breeding season, may separate into male and female colonies.

Threats

• Habitat loss.
• Competition for roosting sites from possums and rats.
• Predation by feral cats, stoats and rats.

Bats move to a new roost tree regularly, so are not always present at one site.

You can help by protecting standing dead trees and old-age trees with hollows and cavities, because these are the natural habitat of long-tailed bats. If you're about to remove a large or dead tree, contact the Project Echo team at Waikato Regional Council.

You could also consider planting large trees for future bat generations.