Animal Sciences Commons^™

Food Habits Of The Hoary Bat In An Agricultural Landscape, Mathew K. Perlik, Brock R. Mcmillan, John D. Krenz

Journal of the Minnesota Academy of Science

Information on diets is fundamental to ecological studies. Prey use by the solitary, tree-roosting hoary bat (Lasiurus cinereus) in agricultural landscapes is not known. We examined the stomach contents and fecal material from carcasses of hoary bats collected during a mortality study at wind turbine sites in southwestern Minnesota. We compared diet of hoary bats to availability of prey to determine whether bats were opportunistic or selective. Food of the hoary bats primarily consisted of lepidopterans (moths; 49-50 %) and coleopterans (beetles; 28-40 %). The abundance of insects in the diet of hoary bats was not proportional to the estimated …