O’SHEA, CRYAN & BOGAN: UNITED STATES BAT SPECIES OF CONCERN 
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States based on a single specimen netted over water in an oak-juniper vegetation community in the 
Chiricahua Mountains of southeastern Arizona in 1955 (Cockrum, 1956). During 1958 an addi¬ 
tional 22 specimens were taken at elevations ranging from 1,082 to 1,646 meters in the Chiricahua 
Mountains, and another 10 specimens were collected in the nearby Galiuro Mountains (Commis- 
saris, 1961). Habitats at these first collecting sites were described as predominantly Mexican pine- 
oak woodland with nearby riparian hardwoods including Arizona sycamore (Platanus wrightii), 
cottonwood (Populus fremontii ), chokecherry (Primus serotina ), Arizona walnut {Juglans major), 
and willows (Salix sp.; Commissaris, 1961). 
They also are known from pinon-juniper woodland at 1,768 to 2,134 meters in western New 
Mexico (Jones, 1961), varied habitats at 1,439 to 2,396 meters elevation in the Henry Mountains 
of southeastern Utah (Mollhagen and Bogan, 1997), and tropical deciduous forest in Oaxaca, Mex¬ 
ico (Bonilla et al., 1992). This species is not difficult to capture in mist nets, yet where they are 
captured they are usually low in abundance compared to other species (Hoffmeister, 1986), and 
their occurrence can be much localized. Some extensive mist-net surveys over water within the 
general distribution of Allen’s big-eared bats in the U.S. have failed to capture this species (for 
example, Bogan et al., 1998; Hall, 2000; Chung-MacCoubrey, 2005; O’Shea et al., 2011a; Geluso 
and Geluso, 2012). 
Southwestern U.S.: Arizona : Surveys after the 1950’s found Allen’s big-eared bats in a wider 
variety of habitats than initially discovered, including: ponderosa pine forest in northern Arizona 
(Findley and Jones, 1961); mixed ponderosa pine, spruce, fir, and aspen forest at 2,195 to 2,377 
meters in central Arizona (Hayward and Johnson 1961; Jones, 1961; Johnson and Johnson, 1964); 
Mojave and lower Sonoran deserts in northwestern Arizona at 792 to 1,067 meters elevation (Cock- 
rum and Musgrove, 1964a); and riparian habitats in Arizona characterized by cottonwoods, wil¬ 
lows and arrowweed (Hoffmeister, 1986). Allen’s big-eared bats ranked tenth in abundance among 
15 species (26 bats captured out of 1,673 individuals) netted over water in ponderosa pine and pon¬ 
derosa pine-Gambel oak woodlands at about 2,200 to 2,600 meters elevation on the Coconino 
Plateau of northern Arizona during 1993-1995 (Morrell et al., 1999). They ranked eleventh in rel¬ 
ative abundance (14 taken among 1,441 individuals of 14 species) captured in combined low sever¬ 
ity and high severity bum areas (two and three years post-fire) in ponderosa pine forest at 2,345 to 
2,686 meters elevation in the Apache-Sitgraves National Forests in east-central Arizona (Saunders, 
2015). They also were low in abundance in 2006 and 2007 at four study areas in northern Arizona 
ponderosa pine forests and pinon-juniper woodlands at 1,200-2,500 meters elevation, with just 32 
taken among 2,090 bats of multiple species captured (Solvesky and Chambers, 2009). They ranked 
ninth in relative abundance (70 captures out of 3,458 individuals of 17 species) among bats cap¬ 
tured in mist-nets set over water in Mohave County in western Arizona (Cockrum et al., 1996). 
They ranked tenth in abundance among 17 species of bats (12 captured of 1,171 total bats netted) 
taken over water mostly in ponderosa pine and pinon-juniper habitats of the Arizona Strip in north¬ 
western Arizona (Herder, 1998). Information from Arizona has suggested that reproductive females 
utilize habitats at higher elevations than males during summer (Solvesky and Chambers, 2009), a 
reversal of patterns seen in some other species of vespertilionid bats (Weller et al., 2009). 
New Mexico : In the Mogollon Mountains of western New Mexico and adjacent Arizona, 
where they were most often captured in evergreen forest above 2,134 meters, Allen’s big-eared bats 
were low in abundance (a total of 31 among 1,595 bats of 20 species, ranking fifteenth) during 
1958-1963 (Jones, 1965). In a separate analysis limited to three sites over water in western New 
Mexico and including additional years of sampling, these bats ranked eighth of 19 species (33 cap¬ 
tures among 1,004 individuals) and were taken at two sites, one located in pine-spmce-fir forest at 
2,500 meters elevation and the other in riparian hardwoods at 1,465 meters (Jones and Suttkus, 
