Brown long-eared bat

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iBrown Long-eared Bat

Conservation status

Least concern (LR/lc)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Chiroptera
Family: Vespertilionidae
Genus: Plecotus
Species: P. auritus
Binomial name
Plecotus auritus
(Linnaeus, 1758)

The brown long-eared bat or common long-eared bat (Plecotus auritus) is a fairly large European bat. It has distinctive ears, long and with a distinctive fold. It hunts above woodland, often by day, and mostly for moths. It is extremely similar to the much rarer grey long-eared bat, and was only distinguished in the 1960s.

An adult Brown long-eared bat has a body length of 4.5-4.8 cm, a tail of 4.1-4.6 cm, and a wing length of 4-4.2 cm. The ears are 3.3-3.9 cm in length, and readily distinguish this from most other bat species. This species appears to prefer caves as roosting sites, but sometimes roosts in trees as well. It is found across northern Eurasia, from England and France to Korea and Japan.


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