Big brown bat

The big brown bat is a species of vesper bat distributed widely throughout North America, the Caribbean, and the northern portion of South America. It was first described as a species in 1796. Compared to other microbats, the big brown bat is relatively large, weighing and possessing a wingspan of.
Big brown bats are insectivorous, consuming a diverse array of insects, particularly night-flying insects, but especially beetles. Some of the beetles it consumes are serious agricultural pests, including cucumber beetles. They are nocturnal, foraging for prey at night and roosting in sheltered areas during the day such as caves, tunnels, tree cavities, and human structures. Their breeding season is in the fall, shortly before their annual hibernation. After hibernation ends in the spring, females form maternity colonies for giving birth to young. Oftentimes only one offspring is produced per litter, though twins are common in the Eastern US. Lifespans of 6.5 years are considered average.
The big brown bat occurs widely throughout the US, Canada, Central America, and the Caribbean. Its range extends into parts of South America, found as far south as Colombia and Venezuela. It is adaptable to many habitats and is considered a generalist species. The big brown bat is not considered at risk for extinction, and is evaluated as the lowest conservation priority by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
While some other bat species in its range have experienced dramatic population declines due to the fungal disease white-nose syndrome, the big brown bat is relatively resistant to the effects of the disease, and some populations have even increased since the syndrome arrived in North America. Like all bats in the US, the big brown bat can be impacted by rabies, though some individuals have immunity against the virus. Even though sick bats are more likely to be submitted for testing, in 2011, only 3.8% of submitted big brown bats were positive for the rabies virus. Bat boxes are sometimes used to attract them as they are an agriculturally valuable species.

Taxonomy and etymology

The big brown bat was described in 1796 by French naturalist Palisot de Beauvois. Palisot described the species based on specimens in the Philadelphia Museum of Charles Willson Peale, an American naturalist, giving it the name Vespertila fuscus. The genus name, Eptesicus, is likely derived from the Greek words ptetikos or petomai, and the species name "fuscus" is Latin in origin, meaning "brown". The big brown bat is the type species for the genus Eptesicus, which was established in 1820 by French-American naturalist Constantine Samuel Rafinesque. Though Rafinesque designated the type species as Eptesicus melanops, this was later determined to be a synonym of Eptesicus fuscus. The first use of the current name combination Eptesicus fuscus was in 1900 by Hungarian zoologist Lajos Méhelÿ. Recognized subspecies number eleven or twelve:

Subspecies	Authority	Type locality
E. f. bahamensis	Gerrit Smith Miller Jr.	Nassau, Bahamas
E. f. bernardinus	Samuel Nicholson Rhoads	San Bernardino, California
E. f. dutertreus	Paul Gervais	Cuba
E. f. fuscus	Palisot de Beauvois	Philadelphia
E. f. hispaniolae	Gerrit Smith Miller Jr.	Constanza, Dominican Republic
E. f. lynni	Harold H. Shamel	Montego Bay, Jamaica
E. f. miradorensis	Joel Asaph Allen	Veracruz, Mexico
E. f. osceola	Samuel Nicholson Rhoads	Tarpon Springs, Florida
E. f. pallidus	R. T. Young	Boulder, Colorado
E. f. peninsulae	Oldfield Thomas	Sierra de la Laguna, Mexico
E. f. petersoni	Gilberto Silva Taboada	Isla de la Juventud, Cuba
E. f. wetmorei	Hartley H. T. Jackson	Maricao, Puerto Rico

E. f. lynni has sometimes been considered a full species, though was listed as a subspecies by the American Society of Mammalogists and the Integrated Taxonomic Information System as of 2019. In the US state of Colorado where two subspecies were hypothesized to overlap, morphological features did not agree with genetic lineages, and thus were not reliable in distinguishing the two subspecies. Individuals with eastern and western US genetic lineages co-occurred in the same colonies, however.
As the genus Eptesicus is fairly speciose, it is further divided into morphologically similar "species-groups". The big brown bat belongs to the serotinus group, which is defined by having a large, elongate skull, flat braincase, and a long snout. In a study of the evolutionary relationships of some Eptesicus species, the big brown bat was most closely related to the two other species from the Americas: the Argentine brown bat and the diminutive serotine. The serotinus group also includes:

Little black serotine, E. andinus
Botta's serotine, E. bottae
Brazilian brown bat, E. brasiliensis
Diminutive serotine, E. diminutus
Argentine brown bat, E. furinalis
Long-tailed house bat, E. hottentotus
Harmless serotine, E. innoxius
Meridional serotine, E. isabellinus
Lagos serotine, E. platyops
Serotine bat, E. serotinus
Sombre bat, ''E. tatei''
Description

It is a relatively large microbat, weighing. Adult body length is. Its forearm is usually longer than. The tail is and the hind legs are. Its wingspan is. Its dorsal fur is reddish brown and glossy in appearance; its ventral fur is lighter brown. Its snout, uropatagium, and wing membranes are black and hairless. Its ears are also black; they are relatively short with rounded tips. The tragi also have rounded tips.
It has a robust skull; the greatest length of the skull is approximately. The snout has a rounded and somewhat flattened appearance. The braincase has a breadth of approximately and the mandible has a length of approximately. The upper incisors are large, with the inner pair more prominent than the outer pair. The inner pair of upper incisors also has a distinctive secondary cusp. The crowns of the lower incisors are trifid, or have three cusps. Its dental formula is, for a total of 32 teeth.

Biology

Diet

Big brown bats are insectivorous, eating many kinds of insects including beetles, flies, stone flies, mayflies, true bugs, net-winged insects, scorpionflies, caddisflies, and cockroaches. It will forage in cities around street lamps. As the big brown bat is such a widespread species, it has regional variation in its diet, though it is generally considered a beetle specialist. Populations in Indiana and Illinois have particularly high consumption of scarab beetles, cucumber beetles, ground beetles and shield bugs. In Oregon, primary prey items include moths in addition to scarab beetles and ground beetles. In British Columbia, large proportions of caddisflies are consumed, with flies as a secondary prey source. A study in Ontario compared fecal samples of big brown bats with the abundance of insects collected in passive traps. The result was a strong preference for beetles as prey. Lepidoptera were the most common insect order collected but beetles were present in 99.2% of fecal samples. When being rehabilitated, big brown bats are often fed mealworms which have been supplemented with necessary vitamins and minerals.
Big brown bats are significant predators of agricultural pests. A 1995 study found that, per year, a colony of 150 big brown bats in Indiana or Illinois consumes 600,000 cucumber beetles, 194,000 scarab beetles, 158,000 leafhoppers, and 335,000 shield bugsall of which cause serious agricultural damage.

Behavior

The big brown bat is nocturnal, roosting in sheltered places during the day. It will utilize a wide variety of structures for roosts, including mines, caves, tunnels, buildings, bat boxes, tree cavities, storm drains, wood piles, and rock crevices. They generally roost in cavities, though they can sometimes be found under exfoliating bark. Both solitary males and solitary, non-pregnant/non-lactating females have been found roosting under bark. In the summer, males are most often solitary, though they may form small, all-male colonies. Males will also sometimes roost with adult females. Females exhibit philopatry, with 10-30% of female offspring returning to their natal roost the following year and up to 72% of adult females using the same roost in subsequent years.
Like many other species of microbats, the big brown bat often uses echolocation to navigate. This means that the species emits a call out into its environment and listens to the echoes of those calls that return from various objects near them. Using echolocation, big brown bats can determine how far away an object is, the objects size, shape and density, and the direction that an object is moving. Their use of echolocation allows them to occupy a niche where there are often many insects, less competition for food, and fewer species that may prey on the big brown bat itself.

Reproduction and life expectancy

Big brown bat mating season is in the fall. After the breeding season, pregnant females separate into maternity colonies around April. Maternity colonies range in size from 5-700 individuals, though in the eastern US and Canada, they are frequently 25-75 adults. Historically, maternity colonies were probably in tree cavities. In modern, human-dominated landscapes, however, many maternity colonies are in buildings. In the eastern United States, twins are commonly born sometime between May and July; in western North America, females give birth to only one pup each year. A dissected female was once found with four embryos; had the female given birth, though, it is unlikely that all four would have survived. Like most species of bat, the big brown bat only has two nipples. At birth, pups are blind, helpless, and only, though they grow quickly, gaining up to per day. The pup nurses from its mother for approximately one month. Mothers leave their pups behind at the roost while they forage at night. Pups fledge, or begin flying, at three to five weeks old.
A 2011 study of a population in Colorado found that their average life expectancy was a little over 6.5 years; according to a 2008 report, some banded big brown bats have lived up to 20 years, although some experts have hypothesized that the bats might be "capable of living much longer." In general, males live longer than females.