Bird-like Noctule

About this species

Diet

Insects and occasionally small migrating birds

Habitat

Forested landscapes; roosts in tree cavities, buildings and sometimes mines

Range

Northeastern China through Korea to Japan

The bird-like noctule is a large, dense-furred bat with yellowish-brown pelage, a short thumb with a strong claw and a tail tip projecting slightly beyond the tail membrane. Oldfield Thomas described Nyctalus aviator in 1911 from a Tokyo specimen. It was temporarily treated as a subspecies of the greater noctule, but has generally been recognized as a full species since the 1980s. Its range extends across northeastern China, Korea and Japan (Wikipedia, general species account).

Bird-like noctules roost in holes in old trees and buildings and sometimes in mine workings. They eat insects, but are exceptional among bats in also capturing small nocturnally migrating birds in open air; faecal DNA has identified Middendorff's grasshopper warbler as prey. Korea's national mammal account describes a forest bat using tree cavities or spaces beneath branches and records it across the mainland, though captures are rare. Korean ecology and abundance remain poorly documented (Korea National Red Data Book 2020; Fukui et al., summarized on Wikipedia).

Description: Wildlife of Korea guide, Wildlife of Everywhere (wildlifeofeverywhere.com); general species information paraphrased from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)