Life
The average lifespan of a Townsend's big-eared bat is 16 years.
During summer, males and females occupy separate roosting sites. Males live solitary lifestyles away from females. Females and their pups form maternal colonies which often number from around 12 to 200, although in the eastern United States, colonies of 1,000 or more have been formed.
During the winter, these bats hibernate, often when temperatures are around 32 to 53°F (around 0°C to 11.5°C.) Hibernation occurs in tightly packed clusters, which could possibly help stabilize body temperatures against the cold. Males often hibernate in warmer places than females and are more easily aroused and active in winter than females. The bats are often interrupted from their sleep because they tend to wake up frequently and move around in the cave or move from one cave entirely to another. Before hibernation, C. townsendii individuals increase their body mass to compensate for the food they do not eat during the winter.
Read more about this topic: Townsend's Big-eared Bat
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“I don’t like your miserable lonely single “front name.” It is so limited, so meagre; it has no versatility; it is weighted down with the sense of responsibility; it is worn threadbare with much use; it is as bad as having only one jacket and one hat; it is like having only one relation, one blood relation, in the world. Never set a child afloat on the flat sea of life with only one sail to catch the wind.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“This life we live is a strange dream, and I don’t believe at all any account men give of it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We are all conceived in close prison; in our mothers’ wombs, we are close prisoners all; when we are born, we are born but to the liberty of the house; prisoners still, though within larger walls; and then all our life is but a going out to the place of execution, to death.”
—John Donne (c. 1572–1631)