Serotine bat
| Serotine bat | |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Chiroptera |
| Family: | Vespertilionidae |
| Genus: | Eptesicus |
| Species: | E. serotinus |
| Binomial name | |
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Eptesicus serotinus (Schreber, 1774) |
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| Global range of E. serotinus (red) | |
The serotine bat (Eptesicus serotinus), also known as the common serotine bat, big brown bat or silky bat, is a fairly large Eurasian bat with quite large ears. It has a wingspan of around 37 cm (15 in) and often hunts in woodland. It sometimes roosts in buildings, hanging upside down, in small groups or individually. The name serotine is derived from the Latin serotinus which means "evening", while the generic name derives from the Greek ἔπιεν and οίκος which means "house flyer".
The serotine bat has long fur which on the back is smoky-brown in colour, while the underparts are a paler yellowish-brown, the nose and triangular shaped ears are black, and the membranes of the wings are dark black or brown. The juveniles are darker than the adults. Seroytine bats are easy to identify in flight, because its broad wings combined with its slow, highly manoeuvrable, flapping flight interspersed with brief glides is distinictive. The tragus has a relatively thin and pointed shape and is not kidney shaped as in Nyctalus.
The serotine bat has a Palaearctic distribution lying between about 58 degrees and 30 degrees from southern Great Britain in the west, east to Taiwan, and south to North Africa, the Middle East and southern and south-east Asia. It has been recorded as a vagrant on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands.
The following subspecies have been recognised.
However, recent studies have indicated that this may be a polyphyletic species with E. serotinus (including turcomanus) in most of Europe and western Asia, E. pachyomus in eastern Asia and E. isabellinus in southern Iberia (boscai) and North Africa.
The serotine bat utilises in a wide variety of habitats including temperate and subtropical dry forest, maquis, agricultural land, semi-desert and suburban areas.
In Europe serotine bats start to establish maternity colonies consisting almost exclusively of females from late May. Colonies usually remain at a single roost site during the breeding season, although occasionally the larger colonies will change roost sites. The female bats usually give birth to a single pup in early July, though births have been recorded as late as mid-August.
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Wikipedia