Evening Bat

About the Evening Bat

The evening bat (Nycticeius humeralis) is a species of bat in the vesper bat family that is native to North America. Hunting at night, they eat beetles, moths, and other flying insects. The evening bat is a small bat weighing 7–15 g (0.25–0.53 oz) found throughout much of the midwestern and eastern United States. Their forearms are 34–38 mm (1.3–1.5 in) in length. The tip of each dorsal hair is a light gray, and one to two-thirds of the basal is dark brown. Though there have been some cases of white pelage, the majority of the population is mostly brown in color. They have wide, dog-like muzzles, pronounced facial glands, and disproportionately large bacula. Evening bats can be mistaken for juvenile big brown bats, due to their physical resemblance but smaller size.

Evening bats have relatively robust jaws, compared to other insectivorous bats. They have an unkeeled calcar and a short, round tragus. The curvature of the tragus helps distinguish it from bats of the genus Myotis, which otherwise look very similar. Their skull has one upper incisor on each side with 4 molariform teeth.

The evening bat is a relatively short-lived, especially... Wikipedia →