I recently accidentally found a specimen of a rare bat; A spotted bat, outside my greenhouse (in Fruita, Colorado) one morning. I don't know what got her, but she had a wound on the back of her head. Dead samples of this species are uncommon and a bat expert actually came to retrieve her for science. (Bats have nipples in their armpits and this lass... well, she was definitely a lass. They were huge!) Her wingspan was about a foot wide! The bats we see in our neighborhood are nowhere near that big.
Euderma maculatum, submerged in alcohol for preservation.
I had no idea we had such amazing things here. It opened my mind up to bats- kings and queens of the sky, of the dark time, the star-spangled other half of earth's time. Humans are dum-dums and famously forget about life underground and at night and have shown our bias forever, but we're getting better.
I'm not going to post my picture of her back- with a distinct "face" of white spots, since it's also a tad gory, but here is a link to a nice photo from when a specimen was found a few years ago.
Apparently, these massive ears help her locate moths and their very soft wingbeats. (Her top food). She raises one pup per year. The number of crevices in Colorado National Monument host a remarkable diversity of bat species, and the prevalence of widely-spaced roosting spots may be what has insulated them from the dreaded white-nose syndrome. Sometimes it pays to be a desert hermit.
A short Bat-Loving plant list for a Colorado Garden.
Woodies (for moth larvae)
Gamble, Desert-live oaks.
Cercocarpus spp.
Amelanchier utahensis
Yucca sp. (harrimaniae, baccata, elata are best)
Forbs (to attract moths)
Datura wrightii
Nicotiana atennuata
Mirabilis multiflora
Mirabilis longituba
Oenothera spp.
Amsonia jonesii (there is white one sold at Chelsea Nursery; these are excellent landscape plants)
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