Species Profiles

Common Name: Rafinesque’s big-eared bat
Family: Vespertilionidae
Genus: Corynorhinus
Species: rafinesquii
Pronunciation: core-ee-no-rine-us raff-a-nesk-kee-eye
Rafinesque’s big-eared bats are known to form nursery colonies in large hollow trees. Hollow tree roosts provide stable internal environments, protection from predators, and often contain well-insulated areas that form the hot-air traps essential for rearing young. These bats range throughout the southeastern United States from southern Virginia south and west to eastern Texas and northward along the Mississippi River valley to southern Indiana. Their range most closely approximates the historical range of great cypress swamps, indicating that they may have formed a traditional reliance on these areas as roosting and/or foraging sites.
As much of these swamp-lands have been drained and trees have been harvested, these bats have apparently moved their maternity roosts into old buildings or attics. Rafinesque’s big-eared bats are slow, agile flyers and appear to forage on a wide variety of small, nocturnal insects, especially moths. They hibernate near their summer foraging grounds in old mines, caves, and cisterns.
Though widespread in the eastern U.S., this bat is nowhere abundant and population levels appear to have declined in the past century due to loss of summer roosting or foraging habitat and/or disturbance at winter hibernacula. Rafinesque’s big-eared bats are at special risk where they form nursery or hibernation colonies in caves that are susceptible to recreational disturbance and in abandoned mines slated for closure or reclamation.
Approximate Range:
![]() |
Further Reading From BATS Magazine
Volume 31, Issue 2, Summer 2013: An Unusual Home for Mother Bats
Volume 29, Issue 1, Spring 2011: Luring Rafinesque’s Big-Eared Bats – or Not
Volume 25, Issue 4, Winter 2007: Helping Nature provide hollow trees for forest bats

Stay up to date with BCI
Sign up and receive timely bat updates
BCI relies on the support of our amazing members around the world.
Our mission is to conserve the world’s bats and their ecosystems to ensure a healthy planet.
Please join us or donate so our work can continue.