Grey long-eared bat
| Grey Long-eared Bat | |
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| Species: | P. austriacus
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| Plecotus austriacus (Fischer, 1829)
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The grey long-eared bat (Plecotus austriacus) 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 more common brown long-eared bat, and was only distinguished in the 1960s, but has a paler belly.
While Continental European distributions are not threatened, a 2013 study found this species was close to extinction in the United Kingdom.[1]
Echolocation
The frequencies used by this bat species for echolocation lie between 18–45 kHz, have most energy at 28 kHz and have an average duration of 5.8 ms.[2]
References
- ^ Victoria Gill BBC News/Science-Environment Rare bat on brink of UK extinction, BBC News, 5 August 2013
- ^ Obrist, M.K., Boesch, R. and Flückiger, P.F. (2004) 'Variability in echolocation call design of 26 Swiss bat species: Consequences, limits and options for automated field identification with a synergic pattern recognition approach.' Mammalia., 68 (4): 307-32.
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