Greater Horseshoe Bat (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum)
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: | Rhinolophus ferrumequinum |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | (Schreber, 1774) |
| 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: | The greater horseshoe bat is a range restricted species for which it is recognised GB has particular importance and responsibility. The greater horseshoe bat has suffered severe declines in Northern Europe and is now considered extinct or very rare in the Netherlands, Belgium, Gibraltar and Germany. It's conservation status is regarded as unfavourable across all of Europe apart from in Britain and the Black Sea region. In Britain populations appear to be increasing but this is set against a backdrop of massive declines and range restrictions. England has nine Special Areas of Conservation (SAC) in place for this species and a greater number of SSSI. It is important to address the main threats to this species. |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Whilst general good practice land management will assist this species, this does not address specific needs. The most important specific needs are to ensure that dung fauna are not impacted by endectocides, understanding the impacts of climate change on prey availability, and the negative impacts of artificial lighting on roosts and landscape use. |
| 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: | Greater horseshoe bats feed on different prey species according to availability, which changes throughout the year. Their population is strongly influenced by the time of least prey availability. A habitat mosaic comprising aquatic (for caddis), woodland (for moths), pasture (for dung beetles/dung flies), and rough grassland (for moths/cockchafers) provides a greater diversity of available prey, hence increased foraging area quality and choice. |
Species Assessment
| Current step on the Species Recovery Curve (SRC): | 6. Recovery solutions trialled |
| Recovery potential/expectation: | Medium-high |
| National Monitoring Resource: | Structured - sufficient |
| Species Comments: | Ongoing legal protection of roosts is vital. As is the protection of SACs around our most important roosts. Enough is understood about this species to know what its key needs are in terms of roosting, foraging and commuting in the landscape. There is good potential to act on the needs of this species. Their roosts are always found in built structures or underground sites and their inability to crawl means they need to be able to fly into their roosts. The heavy historic losses are thought to be due to the use of chemicals in building roosts, the loss of access, disturbance around roosts and bad weather. They also have specific needs in terms of their foraging requirements. Both species of horseshoe bat have a reliance on the dung fauna associated with farming stock, especially cattle. The use of endectocides on cattle has a strongly negative impact on the availability of their prey. This is especially important for young greater horseshoe bats during late summer. Greater horseshoe bats have additionally shown some vulnerability to the effects of unprecedented long, dry springs attributed to climate change, when prey species hatching have been delayed at a vital time in the species' year. The greater horseshoe bat is particularly sensitive to artificial lighting. This can impact bats by fragmenting the landscape or by affecting the use of a roost. |
Key Actions
Key Action 1
Proposed Action: Encourage widespread greater horseshoe bat-friendly farming via targeted advice to farmers/landowners. This would include maintaining/creating smaller fields surrounded by mature hedges and tree-lines, and encouraging hay production rather than sileage. Mixed farming should be encouraged to minimise fertiliser need. A reduction in endectocide use should also be discussed (e.g. by rotating livestock to reduce need: cattle in summer, sheep in winter) or find alternative in species range. These actions should be monitored and evaluated in order to quantify the extent of farm management changes within range areas.
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: National in this context is within the range of this species in England. See also the importance of dung fauna for serotine and the lesser horseshoe bat. Whilst the reduction in use of pesticides could be deemed a wider measure that would benefit this species, specifically there is an issue with parasitic wormers in livestock reducing availability of dung fauna. The dung beetle is a particularly important prey item and measures to ensure they are not impacted by treatments for internal parasites or liver flukes are important for this species, especially in late summer when the young are flying. This is part of a wider issue associated with land management change. For farming - arable, this should include substantial thick (2-3m high) hedges plus 5-10m wide edge buffer strips. Hedges should not be severely cut each autumn (at most this should be done for short strips on a five year rotation). For pasture, this should include keeping some cattle out of sheds over winter, especially Oct/Nov & Jan to March. This is particularly important if sheep (or other livestock) not present. Intensive maize fields (for livestock food) should be discouraged. Other aspects of land management are notable. Removing/changing livestock species, increasing field sizes, land drainage, and changing from hay to sileage production are all likely to have a negative impact on habitat insect productivity that has yet to be fully quantified.
Key Action 2
Proposed Action: Increase understanding of the impacts of climate change on prey species by undertaking bat dietary studies (including a desk study). This should increase knowledge of bat prey species and their vulnerability to seasonal disturbances, enabling climate adaptation land management to be undertaken (e.g. habitat creation for less climate sensitive prey species). Since bat diet varies with season, weather, and geographic location, care would need to be taken not to draw any misleading general conclusions.
Action targets: 4. Autecology and pressures understood
Action type: Scientific research
Duration: 3-5 years
Scale of Implementation: National
High priority sites: It is becoming apparent that climate change is imposing conditions on this species that are causing a failure to thrive. This has most clearly been seen in relation to dry springs and early summer resulting in late hatching of key prey species. This has put affected colonies under strain. SACs could be a focus for this work with the learning being spread across their range in England and beyond. There is information within old English Nature Research Reports detailed greater horseshoe diet at a number of different UK colonies (during both summer and winter).
Comments:
Key Action 3
Proposed Action: Ensure suitable roost provision across the whole of the species English range (including expansion areas) through targeted advice. This would involve identifying and assessing roosting potential (typically large buildings/mansion houses) adjacent to large areas of suitable habitat. The advice package would aim to maximise the roost potential of buildings, e.g. by providing suitable roost entrances, reducing light/wind roost ingress, and exploring ways to provide a range of internal roosting temperatures.
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: Greater horseshoe bats have very specific roosting requirements, needing to fly directly into their roosts, and requiring specific temperature and humidity conditions at different times of the year. NE could then work with landowners to maximise roost suitability. This could include increasing internal temperatures via the use of heaters, increasing the range of available spaces bats could access, provision of anti-predator measures, provision of suitable roost entrances, provision of continuous dark commuting corridors in the immediate vicinity, and removal of any artificial lighting in the immediate roost vicinity.
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.