BATS OF THE CALIFORNIA CHANNEL ISLANDS: NEW SPECIES RECORDS FROM CAPTURE, SIGHTINGS AND ACOUSTIC MONITORING

Patricia E Brown; Brown Bat Biological Consulting; patbobbat@aol.com; William E. Rainey, Jill M. Carpenter

Currently, 17 of the 26 bat species now known to occur in California have been identified by capture, sightings, or acoustic records on the eight California Channel Islands. Of these only six species are known to breed on the islands. On Santa Cruz Island, breeding Yuma myotis (Myotis yumanensis) were documented in 2017 and a lactating long-legged myotis (M. volans) was captured in 2022, the latter a first for all the Channel Islands. In 2017 and again in 2018, we captured juvenile red bats on Santa Cruz Island indicating local breeding. Valdez and Haidar (pers.comm.) identified the 2018 capture by total genomic analysis as an eastern red bat (Lasiurus borealis), a new record of this species for California. Some call frequencies of eastern and western red bats (L. frantzii) overlap, however we infer that both species have been acoustically recorded on Santa Cruz, Santa Catalina and San Nicolas Islands. Between 2017 and 2022, long-term acoustic recording stations have been installed on Santa Cruz (Brown and Rainey); Santa Catalina (Santa Catalina Conservancy); San Nicolas (USN and USGS); and San Clemente, Anacapa and Santa Rosa Islands (USGS). Acoustic data have documented new species for all the islands, and several new records on individual islands.

Channel Islands Conservation