Ozark big-eared bat facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Ozark big-eared bat |
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| An Ozark big-eared bat on a cave ceiling | |
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| Hibernating Ozark big-eared bat | |
| Conservation status | |
Scientific classification  |
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| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Chiroptera |
| Family: | Vespertilionidae |
| Genus: | Corynorhinus |
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| Subspecies: |
C. t. ingens
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| Trinomial name | |
| Corynorhinus townsendii ingens Handley, 1955
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The Ozark big-eared bat is a special kind of bat. It is an endangered species, meaning there are not many left. You can only find these bats in a few caves in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri in the central United States. People also call it the western big-eared bat or the lump-nosed bat.
This bat is easy to spot because of its huge ears and a lumpy nose. It is the biggest and reddest of the five types of Corynorhinus townsendii. This medium-sized bat weighs about 0.2 to 0.5 ounces, which is less than a golf ball! Its ears are about 1 inch long and connect over its forehead. The bat's snout has clear bumps above its nostrils. These bats eat mostly moths and other insects. They hunt for food along the edges of forests.
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Why Bats Are Important
Bats are very helpful to our planet in many ways. For example, a group of big brown bats can eat 18 million cucumber beetles. Bats that eat insects, like the Ozark big-eared bat, help keep insect populations balanced. Many other types of bats, especially in cooler areas, also eat lots of insects.
Bat droppings, called guano, are also useful. They support tiny living things, like bacteria. These bacteria can help clean up waste. They can also be used to make gasohol (a mix of gasoline and alcohol) and some antibiotics.
Where Ozark Big-Eared Bats Live
Ozark big-eared bats live in caves found in karst regions. A karst region is a special landscape. It forms when water dissolves soft rocks like limestone. These areas often have oak-hickory forests.
The caves where these bats sleep through winter (hibernate) stay between 40 and 50 °F (4.4 to 10 °C). Ozark big-eared bats use caves all year long. This means they are very sensitive to changes in temperature. If their cave homes are disturbed or destroyed, they can be in danger. These bats used to live in caves in Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. However, they seem to have left their homes in Missouri. This is likely because people disturbed their caves.
Life Cycle and Reproduction
Female bats have their babies in special caves called maternity colonies. These caves are warmer, usually between 50 and 59 °F (10 to 15 °C). Big-eared bats mate in the fall. They store the male's sperm during the winter. After they wake up from sleeping through winter, the females become pregnant.
Ozark big-eared bats usually give birth to only one baby at a time. This low birth rate makes them very fragile. It means their population can easily become too small if too many bats are lost. Young bats grow quickly. They can fly when they are about three weeks old. By six weeks, they no longer need their mother's milk.
Why Ozark Big-Eared Bats Are Declining
Many bat species are facing problems because of humans. Bats are threatened by several things. These include pesticide poisoning, losing their homes, and diseases like white nose syndrome. Sometimes, too many bats are lost, or they are killed because people see them as pests.
When large habitats are broken into smaller pieces, it's called Habitat fragmentation. This is a big problem for bats. The main reason for their decline is disturbance. When people go into caves where bats are sleeping for winter, it wakes them up. When a bat wakes up, its body uses a lot of energy. Waking up just once can use up 10 to 30 days of fat reserves. This can cause bats to starve to death because they don't have much extra fat. Also, animals like house cats, raccoons, and bobcats sometimes catch bats at cave entrances. This also causes many deaths.
Helping Ozark Big-Eared Bats
People are working to protect these bats. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service created the Sequoyah/Oklahoma Bat Cave National Wildlife Refuge. In other places, fences have been put around cave entrances. These fences keep humans and pets out of the caves. But they are designed so bats can still fly in and out freely.
