Maternity Colonies of the Bat Myotis I. lucifugus in Kentucky

The distribution of Myotis lucifugus lucifugus is discussed and the first known maternity colonies from Kentucky are reported. Three colonies examined contained much higher proportions of adult males than are found in northern colonies. Parturition dates ranged from May 21 to beyond June 21. Banding recoveries of distances up to 35 miles are reported. Maternity colonies of M. lucifugus appear to be scarce and local but widely distributed in Kentucky. Myotis 1. lucifugus is a northern bat. It reaches its greatest abundance in northern United States where it hibernates by the thousands in mines and caves in winter, and where large breeding colonies are easily located in old buildings in summer (Davis and Hitchcock, in press). Southward the species becomes less common; few of the great caves of West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri harbor more than a few hundred in winter, and the species is rare in the caves of Georgia and Alabama. The breeding range is still illdefined. West of the Appalachians the southernmost maternity colonies of M. 1. lucifugus known are Mount Morris, Pa. (Krutzsch, in litt.); Hamilton, Ohio (Goodpaster, specimens at the University of Illinois Museum of Natural History); Franklin, Jackson, Lawrence and Martin counties, Indiana (Cope, et al., 1961); Carbondale, Illinois (Cagle and Cockrum, 1943); Marshall, Sedalia and Clinton, Missouri (Myers, in litt.); and Beaver Bend State Park, Oklahoma (Glass and Ward, 1959). Thus the discovery of six maternity colonies of Myotis lucifugus in Kentucky ig of interest. Data concerning these colonies are presented here. Table 1 shows that adult males are common in the maternity colonies studied. This is unusual since in other areas adult males are rare or absent in maternity colonies (Wimsatt, 1945; Stegeman, 1954; Benton and Scharoun, 1958; Davis and Hitchcock, in press). On one trip only were males scarce; on May 21, 1964, 4.8% of the bats examined at Clay City were males. On June 5, 1964, 22.0% of the sample taken in the same colony were males. This is the reverse of findings of Cagle and Cockrum (1943) at Carbondale, Illinois. They found 38% males on May 31, but only 1.5% males on June 7-8. On July 2, 1963, only 5 (7%) of the 70 bats recaptured from those banded on June 5, 1963, at Clay City were males, although the proportion of males in the entire sample handled had not changed. This loss of males among those previously handled is significant (PI z D S~~~~~~~~~~~~-c S uolrlndd . . o o o . . Q salru : . s . .n dqc)nt o XInr . cn .l tD cn .=~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~11 .( . Q~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~p a p m Dd c'rdq ocro E3 sXlnpv . dq m m~~(uu l c r hoo o o~~~~~~~~~~~~~i ,(~ Q~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ a lr C'>>d i u ? c >r u ? sd q sC>crt $ ~~~~~~~~~~~~L~. c n u c n : = , ?|k u|t5|=> t) I1 sl!z31 4 ?U [UitU uol,lno CD CD CD CD? CD CD CD CD CD *laqeun~~~~~~~~C C c v C C i : This content downloaded from 207.46.13.156 on Sat, 10 Sep 2016 04:27:50 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 1965 DAVIS ET AL.: BAT MATERNITY COLONIES 163 tion. If the males are simply less tolerant to disturbance than females we might expect that a larger percentage of them would fail to return the following year, taking up residence instead in their new, undisturbed quarters. This possibility was investigated at St. Helens on June 29, 1964. Of the 103 bats recaptured from the banding of June 21, 1963 only 27 (26%) were males, whereas 29 (34%) of the 85 new ones were males. These differences are not significant (P.4) and may well have been due to chance. If the difference is real it is probably small not enough to account for the change in composition of the male population at Clay City during June, 1963. Thus, it is likely that this change is due mostly to natural seasonal turnover among the male population in the maternity colonies. Table 1 also gives data on parturition span. Young were first seen on May 21, 1964, at Clay City, whereas at nearby St. Helens 3.5% of the adult females examined were still pregnant on June 21, 1963. One female was still carrying a baby (forearm length 18 mm) on July 2, 1963, at Clay City. Davis and Hitchcock (in press) found young on June 7 and pregnant females on July 10 in Vermont, whereas Cagle and Cockrum (1943) found young on May 17 and pregnant females on July 12 at Carbondale, Illinois. Thus all data suggest that parturition dates span more than a month in M. lucifugus. Figure 1 shows the distribution of known maternity colonies of M. lucifugus in Kentucky. Extensive efforts to locate bat colonies in Kentucky during the summers of 1963 and 1964 resulted in the discovery of 58 maternity colonies. All were Eptesicus fuscus except for the Myotis lucifugus shown. This differs from the findings of Davis and Hitchcock (in press) in New England, where M. lucifugus was the more common. In Indiana, Cope et al. (1961) found 142 colonies of E. fuscus and 41 colonies of M. lucifugus. Thus it appears that Kentucky may be near the edge of the summer range of M. lucifugus where the species becomes scarce and local. The colony in Trigg County occupied an old house which served as headquarters for the National Wildlife Refuge where specimens were taken by R. W. Barbour on June 5, 1951. The building has since