Dasypterus ega
A beautiful, palm-dwelling bat who’s range was considered to extend only as far north as Corpus Christi, but has for the last decade, been extending its range northward up the Texas coast at least through Victoria, Houston, and into a band of counties south of Austin. We first became of their arrival in Austin a few years ago.
They very much resemble Northern Yellow bats but are much smaller in size and have a more delicate appearance. The southern yellow pups sometimes seem more delicate, woolly, or olive colored in comparison with the clumsier, sleeker, blonder northern yellow pups.
Per Allan Chaney’s Key to Mammals of Texas FA <= 49 mm (43-49) 11g – 14g
We started taking in southern yellow bats from Austin in 2019, as a result of tree-trimming incidents, when the brown skirt under the green crown was pruned.
During Winter Storm Uri in Feb 2021, we received four calls for southern yellow bats needing help in Austin. Three more calls were received just outside of Travis County during that event, so they have obviously expanded their range in the last decade.
We ask that they be considered when working with palms damaged during the freeze.
Ask for a consultation and share our webpage https://austinbatrefuge.org/palm-trees
Here’s Wooly:
And here’s Honeysuckle, a southern yellow pup.
Once again, we love this photo, but please remember we are vaccinated and trained bat handlers. Never attempt to handle a bat bare-handed.
They, like the northerns, are also amazing flyers, even in a smaller space they can sock up into a palm roost at very high speed.
Like all bats, they interpret a shiny surface to be calm water, the only surface in nature that does not reflect their echos. So when inside a building they will attempt to drink of a shiny floor, thinking it must be water. Who knew, apparently, our floors are clean enough to drink off of, at least for this bat Levi, Class of 2012!
IUCN Red List info
Range map: http://maps.iucnredlist.org/map.html?id=11350
Species details: http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/11350/0
Some of our favorite rehab bats
Although the species is not endangered, individual Southern and Northern Yellow Bats are at risk from unadvised, ill-performed, and untimely pruning of the skirt of brown fronds around the top of palm trees. We think palm trees look wrong without the skirt and it is incredibly important habitat in arid climates. Pruning in the summer months, when the pups have been born but have not yet learned to fly, is a tragically unnecessary occurrence that is as predictable as the Fourth of July.
Please don’t prune or “clean” the palm frond skirts from late spring through early fall. We see the annual suffering it causes in the injured and orphaned yellow bats.