Longevity Records of Five Male Little Brown Bats (Myotis lucifugus) in Northwest Wisconsin

Abstract

Although bats are highly transient and secretive animals, banding allows biologists to track the longevity of these mammals and their return rates to various roosts. For its mass, Myotis lucifugus (Little Brown Bat) is extremely long-lived, with multiple records exceeding 30 y of age. We report 9 longevity records from 5 male Little Brown Bats, found during hibernation in northwest Wisconsin, that were at least 18–32 y of age at the time of recapture. Extreme longevity records, like those reported here, may no longer be discovered, due to an introduced fungal disease, white-nose syndrome, that has caused mass mortality in species of hibernating bats in North America.