Bats of Texas

Appendix 4: Doolin Family and Frito Company Patents

184 family vespertilionidae weeks of age their eyes have opened, permanent dentition is present, and the young bats are volant. Adult size is reached in approximately 4 weeks, and the pups are weaned at 2 months (Schmidly 1983). Lactating females have been documented in southern Mississippi as late as July 25 (Trousdale and Beckett 2004). In Texas, maternity colonies in manufactured structures were abandoned by October (Mirowsky et al. 2004). This species is long lived, and the maximum recorded age is 10 years (Paradiso and Greenhall 1967). Circumstantial evidence suggests rat snakes may prey on these bats (Clark 1990). Only 2 specimens of C. rafinesquii were reported to the DSHS in 9 years, and 1 of these tested positive for rabies. Status. The IUCN 2011 status of Rafinesque ’s big-eared bat is “least concern.” At the federal level, it is a “species of conservation concern,” and in Texas it is classified as “threatened.” It bears special watching because of its scarcity, lack of knowledge about population levels, and the considerable potential that exists for degradation of roosting and feeding sites by commercial logging practices in the bats’ preferred habitat. There is a real need to determine the effects of modern timber-management practices on this species. The replacement of older girder concrete bridges with slab-style bridges raises concerns as well because this decreases the availability of roost sites (Lance et al. 2001). Moreover, these bats appear to be extremely sensitive to human disturbance at their roost sites (Lacki 2000). Because of their penchant 1977; Saugey et al. 1993), but the winter habits of this bat in the southern United States have not been well documented. They have been found using abandoned water wells throughout the winter in southern Arkansas (England et al. 1990), and a group was found hibernating in a cistern in western Tennessee (Goodpaster and Hoffmeister 1952). Rafinesque’s big-eared bats emerge late in the evening to forage and, like other big-eared bats, are very strong and agile fliers. Most of their foraging activity occurs during the first 4 hours after sunset and last 2 hours before sunrise (Menzel et al. 2001c). Their home range size is relatively small, from 24 to 260 hectares. They tend to forage in upland pine and hardwood habitats in South Carolina and Kentucky even though their roosts are usually located in mature bottomland forest (Hurst and Lacki 1999; Lacki et al. 1996; Menzel et al. 2001c). Small moths (31–57 mm wingspan) constituted more than 90% of the diet of these bats in Kentucky; the remainder included beetles and 5 other orders of insects in small amounts (Hurst and Lacki 1997). Breeding probably occurs in fall and winter, and a single young is produced after the nursery colonies form in spring (Gardner and McDaniel 1978; Jones 1977). Parturition occurs from late May to early June in the northern part of the range and is slightly earlier in the South (Jones 1977; Trousdale and Beckett 2004). Pregnant individuals have been taken in May and June in Arkansas (Cochran 1999). The young are born naked and with their eyes closed; by 3 ...