O’SHEA, CRYAN & BOGAN: UNITED STATES BAT SPECIES OF CONCERN 
5 
Table 2. Species and subspecies of bats within the United States and its territories listed as endangered 
or threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act of 1973 or its forerunner legislation. Species are listed 
in chronological order of designation. Pteropus tokudae is considered extinct (Bonaccorso et al., 2008). 
Species 
Common Name 
Designation 
Year of 
Listing 
References 
Myotis sodalis 
Indiana bat 
Endangered 
1967 
Udall (1967) 
Lasiurus semotus 
Hawaiian hoary bat 
Endangered 
1970 
Gottschalk (1970) 
Myotis grisescens 
Gray bat 
Endangered 
1976 
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 
(1976) 
Corynorhinus townsendii 
ingens 
Ozark big-eared bat 
Endangered 
1979 
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 
(1979) 
Corynorhinus townsendii 
virginianus 
Virginia big-eared bat 
Endangered 
1979 
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 
(1979) 
Pteropus mariannus 
mariannus 
Mariana fruit bat or Fanihi 
Endangered/ 
Threatened 1 
1984/2005 
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 
(1984, 2005) 
Pteropus tokudae 
Little Mariana fruit bat 
Endangered 
1984 
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 
(1984) 
Leptonycteris curasoae 
yerbabuenae 
Lesser long-nosed bat 
Endangered 2 
1988 
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 
(1988) 
Leptonycteris nivalis 
Mexican long-nosed bat 
Endangered 
1988 
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 
(1988) 
Eumops floridanus 
Florida bonneted bat 
Endangered 
2013 
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 
(2013a) 
Emballonura semicaudata 
rotensis 
Pacific sheath-tailed bat 
(Mariana subspecies) 
Endangered 
2015 
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 
(2015a) 
Myotis septentrionalis 
Northern long-eared bat 
Threatened 
2015 
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 
(2015b) 
Emballonura semicaudata 
semicaudata 
Pacific sheath-tailed bat 
(South Pacific subspecies) 
Endangered 
2016 
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 
(2016) 
1 Originally designated endangered on Guam in 1984; down-listed to threatened on Guam and designated as threat¬ 
ened throughout the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in 2005 with recognition that one population occurred 
in both entities 
2 Proposed for de-listing due to recovery January 6, 2017 (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2017). 
existence of a Pagan subspecies of the Mariana fruit bat [ U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2005], 
and the listing of the Pacific sheath-tailed bats as endangered). The species accounts in this publi¬ 
cation pertain to these 20 species. 
A Need for Conservation and Research for U.S. Bats 
The dynamics of bat populations are more akin to those of larger, long-lived mammals than of 
other small mammals. Bat populations tend to be more susceptible to long-term declines and are 
slower to recover from population losses than similarly sized mammals. Unlike many other small 
mammals, bats have low reproductive rates (usually one young per litter once annually, with vari¬ 
ability in pregnancy rates in any given year) and most importantly, require high annual survival of 
adults to maintain stable populations (for example, O’Shea et al., 2011c). Unlike many other long- 
lived mammals, numerous species of bats require special and spatially limited seasonal conditions 
for roosting that force them to gather in aggregations when rearing young and when hibernating in 
winter, rendering these aggregations very susceptible to mortality, disturbance, or loss of habitat. 
Bats are important components of national biodiversity and are economically important as con- 
