Seba's Short-tailed Bat

About the Seba's short-tailed bat

Seba's short-tailed bat is a small, common bat in the family Phyllostomidae, native to Central America, the northern reaches of South America, and the islands of the Antilles. It ranges through Mexico, Belize, Bolivia, Paraguay, Brazil, and Trinidad and Tobago, making it one of the more widespread bats in its part of the world. Its scientific name, Carollia perspicillata, refers to a small to medium-sized bat with short ears and a short, triangular noseleaf.

The bat's fur is dense and soft, and its color varies quite a bit across its range, from black to brown to gray, with albino and orange individuals turning up in some populations. Size and coloring differences between males and females also depend on geography: in Colombia there is essentially no difference between the sexes, in the West Indies females tend to run larger, and everywhere else in its range it is the males that are larger.

Seba's short-tailed bat has a strong sense of smell and good eyesight, and compared to insect-eating bats it relies less heavily on specialized hearing. Even so, it still echolocates to get around, producing intense calls from its mouth or nostrils that form some of the most tightly focused sonar beams known in any echolocating bat. In the wild it favors forest habitat close to stagnant water, generally at elevations below 1,000 meters, and it tends to have a lot of open space around its roost sites. Because of these habits, it is among the bat species most frequently caught at ground level by researchers.

Behavior and diet

This bat is a dietary generalist with a strong preference for fruit in the genus Piper, supplemented by nectar, pollen, and insects. It favors fruits that are high in protein and low in fiber. When fruit is scarce, it shifts toward nectar and pollen from flowers, a habit that may make it a pollinator for the plants it visits. Its flights in search of food tend to be short trips close to the roost; smaller fruits get carried back to be eaten there, while larger fruits are eaten on the spot at the tree.

Seba's short-tailed bats roost in groups of 10 to 100 individuals, using caves, hollow trees, and tunnels. They roost during the day and forage at night, and they form two kinds of roosting groups: harems, made up of one male with several females and their young, and bachelor roosts used by males without harems, which females sometimes join seasonally. Males defend their roosts and will fight intruding males through a ritualized sequence that starts with ear movements, head lifts, neck craning, wing unfolding, and mimicked punches before escalating to actual boxing. Either male can back out of the fight at any point, and injuries are usually limited to scrapes and bruises; distinct vocalizations during these standoffs may help the bats identify their opponent and decide whether to skip straight to boxing.

Breeding happens twice a year, in two periods tied to food supply: June through August, when fruit production is high, and February through May, when flowers are abundant. Males try to attract females into their harems with vocalizations and hovering displays. Gestation lasts about 120 days, and the young are born relatively well developed. They reach adult body weight in 10 to 13 weeks and typically leave the harem around 16 weeks old. Females are sexually mature by one year of age, and males within their first two years. Mothers communicate with their young through calls and can tell their own offspring's voice apart from other young in the roost, showing more approach behavior toward their own calling infant, especially once they have raised a litter before. Males respond differently: rather than attending to the young themselves, they harass mothers until the mothers go tend to their offspring.

As with other bats, this species' energy use during flight follows a U-shaped pattern: it burns the most energy flying at very low or very high airspeeds and the least at moderate speeds. Like many bats, Seba's short-tailed bat is fairly long-lived for its size, with a maximum recorded lifespan of about 10 years. Mortality is steepest early in life, with about 53 percent of individuals dying in their first two years, a rate that drops to around 22 percent in later years; researchers have not found a meaningful difference in lifespan between males and females.

Range and habitat

Seba's short-tailed bat is found across a broad stretch of the Americas, from Mexico and Belize south through Bolivia, Paraguay, and Brazil, and out to Trinidad and Tobago and other islands of the Antilles. It lives in both deciduous and evergreen forest, generally staying below elevations of 1,000 meters and close to sources of still water. Its roosts need a fair amount of open interior space, which is why caves, hollow trees, and tunnels suit it so well. Because it forages and roosts closer to the ground than many other bats, it turns up more often than most species in ground-level surveys.

Conservation status

Seba's short-tailed bat is listed as Least Concern. It is common and widespread across its range, and it adapts well to a variety of forest types. It is also notably prolific in human care: several zoos maintain large colonies, including Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo, whose Kingdoms of the Night nocturnal exhibit houses a large colony displaying natural roosting behavior. It is described as the most common bat species found in zoos today, breeding readily under managed conditions.