Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Arid and semi-arid re­gions of Mex­ico and south­west­ern United States, in­clud­ing the Sono­ran Desert. (Ce­bal­los, et al., No­vem­ber 1997)

• Biogeographic Regions
• nearctic
  • native

Habi­tat

Lep­tonyc­teris yerbabue­nae is found near cacti, usu­ally liv­ing in caves in huge groups. The habi­tat ranges from desert scrub in the south­west­ern United States and north­ern Mex­ico to high el­e­va­tions on wooded moun­tains fur­ther south in Mex­ico.

• Habitat Regions
• temperate
• tropical

• Terrestrial Biomes
• desert or dune
• scrub forest

• Other Habitat Features
• caves

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Lep­tonyc­teris yerbabue­naee is a yel­low-brown or cin­na­mon gray bat, with a total head and body mea­sure­ment of ap­prox­i­mately 3 inches (7.62 cm). The tongue mea­sures ap­prox­i­mately the same length as the body. This species also has a small nose­leaf. The wingspan of Lep­tonyc­teris yerbabue­nae is ap­prox­i­mately 10 inches (25 cm) and the mass is roughly 23 g. (Sny­der and Tyler, 1997; South­west Cen­ter Species Data­base, Oc­to­ber 15, 1997)

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• sexes alike

• Average mass

  23 g

  0.81 oz

• Average length

  8 cm

  3.15 in

• Average wingspan

  25 cm

  9.84 in

Re­pro­duc­tion

Lit­tle is known about the mat­ing sys­tem and be­hav­ior of lesser long-nosed bats. It is known, how­ever, that fe­males con­verge on ma­ter­nity colonies to birth and care for their young (Ce­bal­los et al. 1997). (Ce­bal­los, et al., No­vem­ber 1997)

Lit­tle is known about the re­pro­duc­tive be­hav­ior of lesser long-nosed bats. It is hy­poth­e­sized that the ges­ta­tion pe­riod is ap­prox­i­mately five months. It is not known whether ges­ta­tion in­volves de­layed im­plan­ta­tion or de­layed de­vel­op­ment. There are dif­fer­ent mat­ing/birthing sched­ules for dif­fer­ent pop­u­la­tions. In south­ern Mex­ico, fe­males give birth in De­cem­ber or Jan­u­ary; in Baja Cal­i­for­nia, ba­bies are born in March (Ce­bal­los et al. 1997).

There is only one pup per lit­ter. This bat is not bi­modally polye­strous (it does not give birth twice a year). Sperm pro­duc­tion is max­i­mal dur­ing the late wet sea­son (Ce­bal­los et al. 1997). (Ce­bal­los, et al., No­vem­ber 1997)

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• seasonal breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual
• viviparous

• Breeding interval

  Breeding occurs once yearly.

• Breeding season

  Breeding season varies regionally.

• Average number of offspring

  1

• Average gestation period

  5 months

Fe­males con­verge on ma­ter­nity colonies, which con­sist of any­where from sev­eral thou­sand to over one hun­dred thou­sand preg­nant an­i­mals. The fe­males do not come to the colony at the same time or dur­ing the same stage of preg­nancy. The births are gen­er­ally spread out over a one-month pe­riod. In the north­ern Sono­ran Desert and in Ari­zona, fe­males con­verge on the ma­ter­nity colonies in mid- to late-April. This tim­ing varies by pop­u­la­tion (Ce­bal­los et al. 1997).

Each fe­male cares for her sin­gle pup alone. In the ma­ter­nity colonies, no at­tempts are made by moth­ers to nurse or feed oth­ers' ba­bies. They do, how­ever, ex­hibit other be­hav­iors, such as vis­it­ing, touch­ing and nos­ing oth­ers' pups sev­eral times per night (Ce­bal­los et al. 1997).

The young begin to fly at ap­prox­i­mately four weeks of age (Ce­bal­los et al. 1997). (Ce­bal­los, et al., No­vem­ber 1997)

• Parental Investment
• altricial
• pre-fertilization
  • provisioning
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-hatching/birth
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-weaning/fledging
  • provisioning
    • female

Be­hav­ior

Lesser long-nosed bats ex­hibit many char­ac­ter­is­tic be­hav­iors, in­clud­ing gre­gar­i­ous roost­ing, no co­op­er­a­tive/so­cial bond­ing, un­ex­pected sleep­ing pat­terns, and local and long dis­tance mi­gra­tion along nec­tar trails/cor­ri­dors (Flem­ing et al. 1998).

Lesser long-nosed bats spend over half of their lives in a day­roost, leav­ing only to for­age at night. They spend most of their time in the day­roost rest­ing, di­gest­ing food, in­ter­act­ing with other in­di­vid­u­als, mat­ing and car­ing for young. In­di­vid­u­als of this species form ex­tremely large colonies, in­clud­ing tens of thou­sands to over one hun­dred thou­sand an­i­mals, in caves which trap meta­bolic heat. This meta­bolic heat re­duces the en­er­getic cost to fe­males and in­creases growth rates in the young. In these colonies, the adults are fairly pas­sive; there is a low fre­quency of in­ter­ac­tions among fe­males, and be­tween fe­males and their young. The most fre­quent be­hav­ior is nos­ing other in­di­vid­u­als. This species is non-co­op­er­a­tive; they do not ex­hibit so­cially co­op­er­a­tive be­hav­ior like al­logroom­ing, and fe­males have only been seen to nurse their own young (Flem­ing et al. 1998).

Al­though lesser long-nosed bats rest dur­ing the day and do not ac­tively move or fly, this chi­ropteran is usu­ally fully awake and alert. For rea­sons yet un­known, this species sleeps much less than is pre­dicted by its body size and meta­bolic rate (Flem­ing et al. 1998).

Mem­bers of this species also tend to mi­grate along a nec­tar trail or cor­ri­dor, fol­low­ing the avail­abil­ity of food re­sources. This be­hav­ior is ex­hib­ited es­pe­cially in the north­ern re­gion of the bat's range, where re­sources are not avail­able year-round. The fe­males also mi­grate when they con­verge on ma­ter­nity colonies near the end of their preg­nan­cies (Ro­jas-Mar­tinez et al. 1999). (Flem­ing, et al., Feb­ru­ary 1998; Ro­jas-Mar­tinez, et al., 1999)

• Key Behaviors
• nocturnal
• motile
• migratory
• social
• colonial

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

• Perception Channels
• tactile
• chemical

Food Habits

The diet of lesser long-nosed bats con­sists of nec­tar and pollen from the night-bloom­ing flow­ers of the Agavaceae, Bom­baceae, Cac­taceae, Con­volvu­laceae and Legu­mi­nosae. They also feed on the pulp of cac­tus fruit. They are not ob­lig­ate cac­tus vis­i­tors. The diet is in­flu­enced by avail­abil­ity of pos­si­ble food re­sources (Ce­bal­los et al. 1997).

Lesser long-nosed bats for­age at night, be­tween 24:00 and 02:00, when flow­ers have ac­cu­mu­lated sub­stan­tial amounts of nec­tar. These bats begin by tak­ing gen­er­ally long com­mut­ing flights to a for­ag­ing area. Once they ar­rive at the for­ag­ing area (which usu­ally con­sists of about one square kilo­me­ter), they sur­vey many plants. Later, they may make re­turn vis­its to sev­eral of those plants to feed (Horner et al. 1998).

• Primary Diet
• herbivore
  • frugivore
  • nectarivore

• Plant Foods
• fruit
• nectar

Ecosys­tem Roles

This species has a very close re­la­tion­ship with the cacti on which it feeds. Since lesser long-nosed bats are nec­tari­vores with a rel­a­tively large for­ag­ing area, feed­ing re­sults in both short and long dis­tance pollen move­ments. By doing so, these bats help to cre­ate gene flow within and be­tween pop­u­la­tions of colum­nar cacti (Horner et al. 1998).

Through fecal analy­sis, it has been shown that this species also dis­perses the seeds of fruit on which it feeds (Ro­jas-Mar­tinez et al. 1999).

• Ecosystem Impact
• disperses seeds
• pollinates

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

Lesser long-nosed bats help to pol­li­nate agave, from which tequila is made (Arita and Wil­son, 1987). (Arita and Wil­son, De­cem­ber 1987)

• Positive Impacts
• pollinates crops

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Lep­tonyc­teris yerbabue­nae is con­sid­ered an en­dan­gered species in North Amer­ica. De­struc­tion of its pri­mary food re­sources and gen­eral habi­tat by the tequila in­dus­try and agri­cul­ture is threat­en­ing its pop­u­la­tion num­bers. This species is also es­pe­cially vul­ner­a­ble to ex­tinc­tion be­cause it is a spe­cial­ist, feed­ing on the nec­tar, pollen and fruit of sev­eral plant fam­i­lies pre­sent in south­ern North Amer­ica and Cen­tral Amer­ica. It is also es­pe­cially sus­cep­ti­ble be­cause of its mi­gra­tory habits. Con­ser­va­tion ef­forts should in­clude food re­sources, roost­ing sites and pro­tec­tion of habi­tats along the mi­gra­tory route (Arita and San­tos-Del-Prado, 1999). (Arita and San­tos-Del-Prado, Feb­ru­ary 1999)

Tem­per­ate North Amer­i­can bats are now threat­ened by a fun­gal dis­ease called “white-nose syn­drome.” This dis­ease has dev­as­tated east­ern North Amer­i­can bat pop­u­la­tions at hi­ber­na­tion sites since 2007. The fun­gus, Ge­omyces de­struc­tans, grows best in cold, humid con­di­tions that are typ­i­cal of many bat hi­ber­nac­ula. The fun­gus grows on, and in some cases in­vades, the bod­ies of hi­ber­nat­ing bats and seems to re­sult in dis­tur­bance from hi­ber­na­tion, caus­ing a de­bil­i­tat­ing loss of im­por­tant meta­bolic re­sources and mass deaths. Mor­tal­ity rates at some hi­ber­na­tion sites have been as high as 90%. While there are cur­rently no re­ports of Lep­tonyc­teris yerbabue­nae mor­tal­i­ties as a re­sult of white-nose syn­drome, the dis­ease con­tin­ues to ex­pand its range in North Amer­ica. (Cryan, 2010; Na­tional Park Ser­vice, Wildlife Health Cen­ter, 2010)

• IUCN Red List

  Vulnerable
  More information

• IUCN Red List

  Vulnerable
  More information

• US Federal List

  Endangered

• CITES

  No special status

Other Com­ments

Lep­tonyc­teris yerbabue­nae was pre­vi­ously known as a sub­species: L. cura­soae yerbabue­nae. In older lit­er­a­ture, this species has some­times been re­ferred to as L. san­borni.

Con­trib­u­tors

Jas­mine Bha­tia (au­thor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor, On­drej Pod­laha (ed­i­tor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor.

Ref­er­ences

Arita, H., D. Wil­son. De­cem­ber 1987. Long-nosed Bats and Agaves: The Tequila Con­nec­tion. Bats, 5: 3-5.

Arita, H., K. San­tos-Del-Prado. Feb­ru­ary 1999. Con­ser­va­tion bi­ol­ogy of nec­tar-feed­ing bats in Mex­ico. Jour­nal of Mam­mal­ogy, 80: 31-41.

Bat Con­ser­va­tion In­ter­na­tional, 2001. "BCI-Bat Species: US Species: *Lep­tonyc­teris cura­soae*" (On-line). Ac­cessed Oc­to­ber 7, 2001 at http://​www.​batcon.​org/​discover/​species/​lcuraso.​html.

Ce­bal­los, G., T. Flem­ing, C. Chavez, J. Nas­sar. No­vem­ber 1997. Pop­u­la­tion dy­nam­ics of *Lep­tonyc­teris cura­soae* (Chi­roptera: Phyl­losto­mi­dae) in Jalisco, Mex­ico. Jour­nal of Mam­mal­ogy, 78: 1220-1230.

Cryan, P. 2010. "White-nose syn­drome threat­ens the sur­vival of hi­ber­nat­ing bats in North Amer­ica" (On-line). U.S. Ge­o­log­i­cal Sur­vey, Fort Collins Sci­ence Cen­ter. Ac­cessed Sep­tem­ber 16, 2010 at http://​www.​fort.​usgs.​gov/​WNS/​.

Flem­ing, T., A. Nel­son, V. Dal­ton. Feb­ru­ary 1998. Roost­ing be­hav­ior of the lesser long-nosed bat, *Lep­tonyc­teris cura­soae*. Jour­nal of Mam­mal­ogy, 79: 147-155.

Horner, M., T. Flem­ing, C. Sahley. 1998. For­ag­ing be­hav­iour and en­er­get­ics of a nec­tar-feed­ing bat, *Lep­tonyc­teris cura­soae* (Chi­roptera: Phyl­losto­mi­dae). Jour­nal of Zo­ol­ogy, Lon­don, 244: 575-586.

Na­tional Park Ser­vice, Wildlife Health Cen­ter, 2010. "White-nose syn­drome" (On-line). Na­tional Park Ser­vice, Wildlife Health. Ac­cessed Sep­tem­ber 16, 2010 at http://​www.​nature.​nps.​gov/​biology/​wildlifehealth/​White_​Nose_​Syndrome.​cfm.

Ro­jas-Mar­tinez, A., A. Va­liente-Banuet, M. del Coro Ariz­mendi, A. Al­can­tara-Eguren, H. Arita. 1999. Sea­sonal dis­tri­b­u­tion of the long-nosed bat (*Lep­tonyc­teris cura­soae*) in North Amer­ica: does a gen­er­al­ized mi­gra­tion pat­tern re­ally exist?. Jour­nal of Bio­geog­ra­phy, 26: 1065-1077.

Sny­der, H., M. Tyler. 1997. "Lesser Long-Nosed Bat" (On-line). Ac­cessed Oc­to­ber 7, 2001 at http://​www.​animalfirm.​com/​bat.​html.

South­west Cen­ter Species Data­base, Oc­to­ber 15, 1997. "Lesser Long-Nosed Bat" (On-line). Ac­cessed Oc­to­ber 7, 2001 at http://​www.​sw-center.​org/​swcbd/​dbase/​llnbat.​html.