Brown Long-eared Bat (Plecotus auritus)
Key Details
| Taxonomic Groups: | Vertebrate > terrestrial mammal > Bat |
| Red List Status: | Least Concern (Not Relevant) [LC(nr)] |
| D5 Status: | Included in the baseline Red List Index for England (Wilkins, Wilson & Brown, 2022) |
| Section 41 Status: | (not listed) |
| Taxa Included Synonym: | (none) |
| UKSI Recommended Name: | Plecotus auritus |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | (Linnaeus, 1758) |
| UKSI Recommended Qualifier: | (none specified) |
| Red List Citation: | Mathews & Harrower, 2020 |
| Notes on taxonomy/listing: | (none) |
Criteria
| Question 1: | Does species need conservation or recovery in England? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Although this species is the second most abundant bat species in England, it is difficult to acquire data for it due to its quiet echolocation call and late emergence from roosts. The National Bat Monitoring Programme (NBMP) reports a stable trend over the last 20 years but no signs of recovery. This species is known to roost all year round in built structures and being aware of its presence can be very difficult, making it especially vulnerable to the impacts of modifications on its roosts. Mitigation measures in such circumstances require more understanding to learn how to increase the success of these measures in built structures. Additionally, this species also utilises roosts in trees and so woodland management to take this into consideration is important. This species flies only a short distance from its roost to forage and utilises complex vegetation structures from which to glean its prey; in particular the cluttered interior of woodland. The opening up of woodland as a conservation measure is a threat to this species. |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | The brown long-eared bat has specific needs for roosting when using built structures. Understanding the mitigation needs for roosts in buildings is required to enable this species to recover. Although the species should also benefit from widescale untargeted habitat management, current good practice woodland management can often act against the needs of this woodland interior foraging species. Special consideration needs to be given to avoid actions such as clearing, thinning and fragmentation to allow for undisturbed, woodland interior with complex vegetational structure. |
| Question 3: | At a landscape scale, would the species benefit from untargeted habitat management to increase habitat mosaics, structural diversity, or particular successional stages? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Untargeted habitat management should benefit this species. The species is strongly associated with tree cover, preferring light deciduous woodland, but will also use native conifers and mixed woodland. Any habitat creation offering continuous vegetation cover and an adequate prey resource would benefit the species. The species should benefit from appropriate woodland management in particular, undisturbed woodland interior with complex vegetational structure. Any management that increases habitat quality and insect abundance and diversity will be beneficial in providing increased quality foraging area and availability. |
Species Assessment
| Current step on the Species Recovery Curve (SRC): | 4. Autecology and pressures understood |
| Recovery potential/expectation: | Medium-high |
| National Monitoring Resource: | Structured - sufficient |
| Species Comments: | Ongoing legal protection of roosts is vital to prevent extinction. This species represents the importance of undisturbed, woodland interior where there is complex vegetational structure. Woodland management for conservation has a strong ethos of opening up and letting in light. The needs of this species must be taken into account in all of England when considering woodland management. In the wider landscape, it is particularly sensitive to artificial lighting which impacts its ability to use a roost and also to forage and commute in the landscape. |
Key Actions
Key Action 1
Proposed Action: Promote and advise woodland owners and managers on woodland management. This should include advice on clearing, thinning and fragmentation that erode the capacity for woodland to support this species. This could be achieved by landowner workshops with other partners, as well as the provision of local guidance.
Action targets: 7. Best approach adopted at appropriate scales
Action type: Advice & support
Duration: 3-5 years
Scale of Implementation: National
High priority sites:
Comments: Current good practice woodland management can often act against the needs of this woodland interior foraging species. We have the knowledge of this bat species' needs and this message is given in BCT's training but, to prevent further losses to this species, greater awareness and action needs to have a national focus. These woodland management needs will also support barbastelle, lesser horseshoe bat and Bechstein's bat. See this as combined with woodland management needs for Bechstein's bat, barbastelle and lesser horseshoe bat. This means amalgamation of costings into one project would be appropriate.
Key Action 2
Proposed Action: Research into the genetic historic population change to analyse the data and generate a genomic dataset, and use this to understand the historic changes in the population of this species and the drivers of change.
Action targets: 4. Autecology and pressures understood
Action type: Status survey/review
Duration: 2 years
Scale of Implementation: National
High priority sites:
Comments: Orly (2023) has started work into this but not complete. Data has been collected but needs analysing.
Key Action 3
Proposed Action: To inform future mitigation advice for developers, carry out research into the roosting ecology of the brown long-eared bat to investigate how they find new roosts, the efficacy of different access points, microclimatic variability within roosts, light sampling behaviour (including the impact of artificial lighting in proximity of roosts) and the influence of the texture and smell of new materials.
Action targets: 6. Recovery solutions trialled
Action type: Scientific research
Duration: 3-5 years
Scale of Implementation: National
High priority sites:
Comments:
Acknowledgment:
Data used on this website are adapted from Threatened species recovery actions 2025 baseline (JP065): Technical report and spreadsheet user guide (Natural England, 2025). Available here.