Church in Átány
Greater mouse-eared bats occupy cooler places in attics because of the big heatGuano and juvenile carcasses (greater mouse-eared bat colony Greater muse-eared bat

Áldott Karácsonyt!

In 2010 this strictly protected species was selected to be the Bat of the Year in Hungary.
drinking Barbastelleportrait of Basbastelle

We continued the research of greater noctule this year. We tagged two individuals. We got several interesting new data regarding the species. At a located roost we counted 20-25 emerging greater noctules.a tagged greater noctule

We take part in the Hungarian National Biodiversity Monitoring again. We monitored hibernating bat colonies in February and maternity colonies in June. serotine colonya died young greater mouse-eared bat

The workshop will be conducted between 13 and 16 of August, 2008. The center of the activities will be the settlement Felsőtárkány (near the town of Eger). More info on the workshop can be downloaded from www.hunbat.hu.

Denevérkutatás 4.
The 4th issue was published by our Society with the financial help of the Hungarian Cultural Fund (NKA). The issue consists of 10 papers (all but one have English abstract). You can download the papers from hunbat homepage.

Geoffroy's bats primarily live in buildings in the summer. In winter they hibernate in caves and mines. The species occurs mainly in the mountains of North-East Hungary, but few nurseries can be found in the eastern part of the Hungarian Great Plain. These colonies possibly hibernate in the neighbouring Bihar Mountains.

The loss of their feeding habitats, the illumination of the buildings (churches) of the roosts and the disturbance of hibernating sites are threatening this strictly protected species.

Geoffroy's bat (Myotis emarginatus)

The last data of Greater Noctule from the Bükk Mountains dated to August 1997.
Despite of very intensive sampling efforts at the known locality and at other points of the mountains not any specimens of this rare species were observed since then.

Greater Noctule (Nyctalus lasiopterus)
The Greater Noctule is the largest bat species in Europe. The wingspan can reach 46 cm, and the weight can exceed 70 g. The Greater Noctule is a typical forest-dweller bat, except for a few cases it roosts in tree hollows year-round.

The Greater Noctule is one of the rarest bat species in Hungary. This strictly protected species was observed at 9 localities, and only one nursing population is known. One possible reason of its rareness is the decline of the extension of old forests with natural structure.

We will search for this rare species more often in 2007. We hope that new colonies will be discovered and those forest parts will be saved from logging.