Mexican Free-tail Bat

Distribution

Reproduction

Habitat

Diet

Mortality

Management

Literature Cited

Distribution

The distribution of the Mexican free-tail bat is one of the most widely known in the western hemisphere for all mammals (TPWD website) (Figure 1).  They are the most common bat in Texas (Schmidly 1999).  Their distribution stretches from southern Oregon across the Southwestern United States through the Southeastern U.S. into southern North Carolina.   This species can be found south of this line across the United States including the tip of Florida and all of Central America creating the southern boundaries.  There are Mexican free-tail bats in South America, however the distribution is not well known (Wilkins 1989).   The Mexican free-tail bats arrive in central and western Texas in the spring and depart in the fall for Mexico.  During the summer months, the populations in Texas caves range between 95.8 and 103.8 million bats (Schmidly 1999).