Many North American bat species readily use inch crevices typical of traditional backyard bat houses made popular by BCI's bat house program, but sometimes bats need special accommodations.

Some species don't roost in crevices, but instead hollow trees or sloughing bark. In other cases, we may experiment with creating roosting space for a unique installation. Whatever the situation, BCI and our partners are experimenting with alternative bat houses for these special situations.

If you want to install bat houses into a building, you don't have to build an entire bat house! You can be creative as long as you remember the 3/4 inch crevice rule!

Here are some examples :

Please contact our Bat House Coordinator, BCI's artificial roost coordinator for current information and plans for constructing these roosts.

More about the species using these roosts:

Rafinesques big-eared bats (Corynorhinus rafinesquii) and southeastern myotis (Myotis austroriparius) are rare species that occur throughout the southeastern United States from the pine forests of East Texas to the west. These bats typically roost in large hollow trees. However, when these natural roosts are not available they have been documented roosting in undisturbed buildings, barns, and abandoned wells. Both species of bats are very sensitive to human disturbance, and populations are generally thought to be in decline range-wide.

Bat Bark is an innovative approach to creating crevices for bats that traditionally use sloughing bark on dead trees.

U.S. Forest Service biologists, after attending one of the BCI workshops, brain-stormed a unique solution to the paucity of old snags in todays young, managed forests. They figured, why not try to create artificial exfoliating bark on the trunks of living trees . . . the idea for bat bark was born.

Bat Bark is cast from polyurethane or fiberglass molds taken from actual living trees. It is then painted to blend into natural trunks.

It is also possible to construct artificial cave/mine roosts specifically for bats, and this is exactly what one landowner in central Texas has done. In 1997, former BCI trustee J. David Bamberger consulted with BCI founder Merlin Tuttle about constructing a man-made cave as a bat roost.

You can read details and updates about the Chiroptorium here on the Selah (Bambergers ranch).

Biologists estimate that there are over 60,000 bats now using the cave. In addition to the Mexican free-tails, cave myotis roost in a small area specifically designed for this species during construction.