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Slender Yellow Bat

Baeodon gracilis
LC · Least concern Chiroptera Vespertilionidae
Slender Yellow Bat (Baeodon gracilis)
Photo: © Juan Cruzado Cortés, some rights reserved (CC BY)
Size
4-5 cm
Weight
4-6 g
Activity
Nocturnal

Description

The Slender Yellow Bat shares a genus with Allen's Yellow Bat, from which it is distinguished mainly by a more slender and graceful body. It inhabits a somewhat wider strip of pine and pine-oak forest and tropical dry forest in central and southern Mexico. Like other bats in its group, the Slender Yellow Bat is tiny and strictly nocturnal. This, combined with the limited sampling of bat fauna in parts of its range, means it is known from relatively few localities. It lives across a wide altitudinal range, from warm lowlands to mountain forest. This suggests a wider ecological tolerance than the few available records might initially suggest.

How to identify it

The Slender Yellow Bat is a very small bat with yellowish fur, a more slender body than other yellow bats in its area, and short, rounded ears. It differs from Allen's Yellow Bat, its closest relative, mainly by its more graceful and slender body, although reliable field identification often requires capture.

Habitat and range

Pine and pine-oak forest, dry tropical forest and arid scrubland, between 600 and 2000 m altitude.
Distributed across a strip of central and southern Mexico, from Jalisco and Zacatecas to Oaxaca.

Diet

Insectivorous, it feeds on small insects caught in flight.

Behaviour

Nocturnal. Relatively few records exist, limiting detailed knowledge of its social and reproductive behaviour.

Conservation

Its populations are generally considered stable within its endemic range in Mexico, with no documented signs of significant decline.

Threats

Deforestation and transformation of pine-oak forest and dry tropical forest due to agricultural and livestock expansion.

Other accounts in Vespertilionidae

See all species accounts for bats · Full species index

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