Lesser Long-eared Bat

Fascinating facts about the Lesser Long-eared Bat

• A lesser long-eared bat's ears are nearly as long as its entire body — up to 2.5 centimetres on an animal that weighs just 4 grams. These aren't for show: they're precision acoustic dishes that can hear a beetle walking on a leaf 10 metres away in total darkness. The ears swivel independently like satellite dishes, tracking multiple insect flights at once.
• Every night, a lesser long-eared bat hunts by releasing 200 clicks per second, then listens for echoes bouncing off moving prey. That's 18 million acoustic snapshots during a single night shift. Their brain processes this flood of sound 10 times faster than a human can blink, building a detailed 3D map of every insect in the air.
• Western Australian populations of this bat rely on old-growth forest corridors that are less than 50 years old in many regions — the forests themselves are younger than a human grandparent. When these gaps get fragmented, individual bats can't cross open ground to reach feeding sites, turning a continuous hunting ground into isolated islands.
• A lesser long-eared bat will return to the exact same roost tree — sometimes the same hollow — for 10+ years, and if that tree is felled, the bat may spend weeks searching for an alternative, burning energy reserves it can't afford to lose. In Western Australia's logging regions, this fidelity to old trees is now a vulnerability rather than a survival skill.
• These bats hunt spiders directly from their webs, plucking them out with surgical precision without tearing the silk. They've also learned to glean insects from tree bark and leaves while hovering — a hunting technique that burns more energy but gives them access to insects other bats can't reach. It's why their wings are shorter and wider than aerial hunters', built for precision over speed.

At a glance

About the Lesser Long-eared Bat

As dusk descends, the Lesser Long-eared Bat stirs, unfolding its delicate wings like a dark, leathery cloak, and takes to the evening skies with a soft, whispery flutter. With echolocation calls that pierce the twilight air, it navigates the intricate tapestry of trees and underbrush, its large, attentive ears twitching with every faint echo, as it pursues the tiny insects that dance in the fading light. In this fleeting, crepuscular world, the Lesser Long-eared Bat reigns supreme, a master of the shadows, its very existence a testament to the magic that unfolds at the threshold of night.

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