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PROCEEDINGS OF THE CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
Series 4, Volume 65, Supplement I 
North Carolina and Tennessee: Although relative abundance was not determined, habitats of 
roosting eastern small-footed myotis were determined for 5 females and 15 males tracked by 
telemetry in the Unicoi Mountains along the North Carolina-Tennessee border (Thompson, 2013). 
Roosts were at 913 to 1,441 meters elevation within 70-80 year old hardwood forest with multiple 
oak species mixed with yellow poplar, American beech, sugar maple, yellow birch (Betula 
alleghaniensis ), white pine, and hemlock (Thomson, 2013). 
West Virginia and Virginia: In West Virginia, eastern small-footed myotis ranked fifth in rel¬ 
ative abundance among 11 species observed during mist-net surveys carried out in 37 counties 
throughout the state, with 151 (1.3%) bats captured among 11,831 bats taken during summers 
1997-2008, prior to the advent of white-nose syndrome (Francl et al., 2012). They ranked seventh 
after the onset of the disease, with six captures (0.4%) among 1,310 bats taken (Francl et al., 2012). 
Johnson et al. (2011) found this bat to be the second most abundant species in 50 nights of early 
summer netting in mixed hardwood, oak-chestnut forest on New Creek Mountain in the Ridge and 
Valley Physiographic Province of West Virginia, where most were netted over road ruts or ridgetop 
ponds. Most importantly, they reported that number of captures of this species dropped off sharply 
when distances between capture sites and talus slopes (where bats roosted) exceeded about 200 
meters (Johnson et al., 2011). 
Mist-netting surveys over water and roads at 26 sites in western Virginia during summers 
1992-1995 resulted in the capture of 11 eastern small-footed myotis, ranking seventh among the 
11 species and 235 individual bats documented; most of the eastern small-footed myotis were cap¬ 
tured in the Appalachian Plateau physiographic region (Hobson, 1998). In the central Appalachian 
Mountains of western Virginia, Huth et al. (2015) compared acoustic monitoring with mist netting 
and visual searches for this species at talus slopes and found acoustic methods to be ineffective, 
whereas the former two methods used at emergent rock resulted in much higher detection proba¬ 
bilities. They were one of the least abundant species captured during autumn swarming at entrances 
to 15 caves in western Virginia, with 27 bats taken among 1,452 individuals of eight species dur¬ 
ing 2008-2013; during winter at these same caves only 10 eastern small-footed myotis were taken 
among 3,072 bats of seven species (Powers et al., 2015). 
Foraging and Dietary Analysis. — Foraging home ranges of four adult female eastern 
small-footed myotis were determined by short-term radio tracking during spring in western Mary¬ 
land (Johnson et al., 2009). Minimum home range estimates were 10-100 ha, and maximum dis¬ 
tances traveled from diurnal roosts were less than 1.8 kilometers. All bats foraged over the Potomac 
River, in adjacent riparian forests, and on forested hilltops. The single female located most often 
foraged closer to paved roads, pastures, coniferous forest, and mixed forest than random locations, 
with 94% of 74 foraging locations determined to be in forested areas, primarily deciduous forest 
(Johnson et al., 2009). 
Moosman et al. (2007) studied the diet of eastern small-footed myotis during summer in mixed 
deciduous and coniferous forest in New Hampshire. The diet was diverse, although moths com¬ 
prised more than half of the diet in their samples. Most food items were categorized as soft or inter¬ 
mediate in hardness, with large, hard-bodied insects such as scarabaeid beetles present only in trace 
amounts. Diet was similar across demographic groups of bats although juveniles showed evidence 
of eating proportionally more beetles, and sampling bias may have been involved in this pattern. 
Presence of non-volant prey (such as spiders and crickets) in the diet led Moosman et al. (2007) to 
suggest that this species may glean insects from the ground or surfaces of vegetation. Dietary 
analysis of fecal pellets from 54 individuals sampled during summer in southern New Hampshire 
also showed lepidopterans composing about half of their prey, followed by coleopterans, dipterans, 
and arachnids (Thomas et al., 2012). 
