Critically Endangered
New Zealand long-tailed bat
Chalinolobus tuberculatus
New Zealand long-tailed bat is a bat in the family Vespertilionidae (order Chiroptera) — Chalinolobus tuberculatus, recorded as Critically Endangered and tied to New Zealand.
The bat
New Zealand long-tailed bat is a bat in the family Vespertilionidae (order Chiroptera) — Chalinolobus tuberculatus.
Range and habitat
There are populations on both of the main islands, as well as on Stewart Island, Little Barrier Island, Great Barrier Island and Kapiti Island. There is a negative relationship between the abundance of this species and urbanisation, and as of 2024, they are considered extinct in urban habitats. The long-tailed bat have very large home ranges of up to 20km in radius.
The long-tailed bat is one of two extant and three total terrestrial mammals endemic to the islands of New Zealand.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
The mother will feed the pup every 1–3 hours after birth.
In crisis
Larger populations of these bats usually range between 100 and 350 individuals, even so, due to the movement and crossover of population habitats, these numbers are not confirmed. In regard to population structure, reproductive females are the most dominant individuals at communal roosts, accounting for 62.8% of adults. The second most dominant individuals are non-reproductive females at 22.1%, followed by males at 15.1%.
The individuals of this species will almost always roost with the same group, with only ~1.6% of individuals varying this. This 1.6% is entirely non-reproductive females or adult males, suggesting reproductive females will remain dominant in a communal roost for a significant period of time.
New Zealand long-tailed bat is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on New Zealand long-tailed bat, Wikidata item Q587667. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
