Social calls of the Brown long-eared bat (Plecotus auritus)

Recordings from 2024

To listen to social calls of the brown long-eared bat, you can visit the files of the following lists on Xeno Canto:
- Type A social calls of different species of bats
- Type B (roosting) social calls of multiple species of bats
- Type C social calls of multiple species of bats

Photo by: Charlotte Serrarens

Almost 97% of the social calls of brown long-eared bats that were recorded during a research to social calls of brown long-eared bats conducted by Murphy (2012) fell into the type C category (Middleton et al., 2020).

Type C social calls of the brown long-eared bat are often emitted as a single call, in a group of two calls, in a group of three calls or in a long series of calls (Furmankiewicz, 2004 & 2016; Furmankiewicz and Jones, 2021).

The following type A, type B and type C social calls were recorded with a batlogger M that was placed underneath a maternity colony of brown long-eared bats whom were roosting in the roof of a barn.

Date of recording: 2024-07-13          Recorded by: Sarah Mahie, Boaz van Die          Audio file: 920925, 920929, 920933, 920935, 920936, 920937, 920938, 920940, 920941, 920943, 920951, 920954, 920956920961, 920967, 920986, 920989, 921142, 921143, 921145, 921146, 921148, 921150, 921154, 921156, 921157, 921158, 921159, 921161, 921162, 921163, 921164, 921165, 921166, 921167, 921169, 921173 

The following recording was made outside with no known roost in the area. The look and the sound of the calls look almost identical to the type C social calls of the brown-long eared bat recorded by J. Furmankiewicz (Middleton et al., 2020) and are very similar to the social calls shown in the last snippit of the previous recordings. No other calls of this bat were recorded. In this recording, two groups of three calls are clearly visible. Later in the recording, groups of two calls are present too.

Date of recording: 2024-06-13          Recorded by: Kaia Pieters          Audio file: 912745 

Type A, B and type C social calls were also recorded in the same setting as the recordings of the first maternity roost of brown long-eared bats. A batlogger M was left overnight directly underneath the colony of bats whom were roosting in the attic of a building.

Date of recordings: 2024-07-29, 2024-07-30          Recorded by: Charlotte Serrarens          Audio file: 924445, 924450, 924457, 924464, 924465, 924466, 924467, 924468, 924469, 924472, 924475, 924476, 924477, 924478, 924479, 924481, 924487, 924489, 924492, 924493, 924494, 924495

The following calls were emitted by a flying bat, recorded from a garden.

Date of recording: 2024-08-17          Recorded by: Anne van Well          Audio file: 929599 

Series of social calls were recorded twice during a survey in a residential area:

Date of recordings: 2024-08-23          Recorded by: Mark Frankruijter, Sanneke Neeling          Audio files: 931765, 931767 

Date of recording: 2024-09-13          Recorded by: Thomas Janssen          Audio file: 933818 

Between 16,030s and 16,140s in the recording, the type C social calls were emitted in quick succesion:

Date of recording: 2024-09-17          Recorded by: Douwe van der Wijk          Audio file: 935733 


All recordings are licensed under the following Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 license and in courtesy of Sarah Mahie. 
All sonograms are screenshots of the recordings imported in the ultrasound analysis software BatExplorer 2.2 (Elekon, Switzerland). 

 

Literature list:

- Joanna Furmankiewicz (2004). Social calls and vocal activity of the Plecotus auritus in SW Poland. Le Rhinolophe, 17: 101–120.

- Joanna Furmankiewicz (2016). The social organization and behavior of the brown long-eared bat Plecotus auritus. In: J. Ortega (ed) Sociality in Bats. Springer International Publishing, Switzerland, 11-46 p. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-38953-0_2

- Joanna Furmankiewicz and Gareth Jones (2021). Bats (Plecotus auritus) use contact calls for communication among roost mates. 

- Neil Middleton, Andrew Froud and Keith French (2022). Social Calls of the Bats of Britain and Ireland. Second edition. Pelagic Publishing.

- S. E. Murphey (2012). Function of social calls in brown long-eared bats Plecotus auritus. PhD thesis, School of Life Sciences at the University of Sussex.