Overview

The Galapagos red bat has a short, blunt head and ears and thickly-furred tail membrane with bright rusty-orange fur on its lower back, and its hindquarters are frosted with red. It is considerably smaller than the hoary bat, the other bat species found in Galapagos. It tends to fly relatively close to the ground with rather fast wing beats. 

The Galapagos red bat is a subspecies of the southern red bat which is found throughout parts of North and South America. Similar to birds, southern red bats migrate to the southern parts of the world when it gets cold and head north when the weather starts to warm up in the Northern Hemisphere, though it is thought that the Galapagos red bat is mostly sedentary. The bats are most likely found in the forest roosting under leaves. When roosting, the bats hang upside down from a tree branch from one foot, trying to blend in with their surroundings, such as dead leaves. Red bats eat a variety of insects including moths, flies, true bugs, beetles and cicadas. Like most bats, they are nocturnal, hunting during the night using echolocation.