Get ghosted this season.
10.24.25
By Paul Hormick
Hopping on their huge hind legs, wallabies, kangaroos, and wallaroos speed through the Australian countryside, while koalas cling to eucalyptus trees and munch on their leaves. Large emus traverse open plains and the calls and songs of cockatoos strike sharply on the ear. All these curious creatures make the Land Down Under rich with wonder. Adding to the magic of the continent are Australia’s bats. Most folks know about the country’s flying foxes, the large fruit bats that roost among tree branches, but if you visit some of the northern regions of Australia, you may spy another intriguing creature haunting the night sky, the ghost bat (Macroderma gigas).
These bats can look pretty phantasmic, as the pale skin membranes of their wings give them a ghostly appearance. They are big too. They are the largest member of the microbat family in Australia and the second largest in the world. With a wingspan of nearly two feet, they are comparable in size to megabats, such as flying foxes. The ghost bat has large eyes, and a simple noseleaf dominates its face. Their large ears are joined at their base and their fur is light to dark grey above and paler below.
Ghost bats are Australia’s only carnivorous bat. They eat insects, but they also hunt reptiles, small mammals, and birds. An unsuspecting mouse may not notice a ghost bat perched in a eucalyptus tree, but with its excellent eyesight and hearing, the bat has certainly detected the mouse. The bat then drops from the tree and, like a specter, zeros in on the unsuspecting prey.
This bat uses echolocation to find prey, but will also listen for the echolocation calls of other bats to locate and catch them. They use their excellent vision to spot birds roosting in trees and even detect them by their silhouettes against the evening light. Ghost bats find one of their favorite meals, budgerigars (or budgies), by listening for their chattering as the birds retire for the night. In one instance, researchers recorded a ghost bat dropping from a tree to catch locusts moving through grass 10 to 20 yards away. Because ghost bats never enter torpor, an energy saving strategy, they need reliable sources of prey throughout the year.
Fences can be dangerous obstacles for these bats as they seek out prey close to or at ground level—and some have been known to die from colliding with wire fencing. In one case, a single fence was responsible for wiping out a ghost bat colony in Pilbara.
During mating, in spring and summer, ghost bats congregate in a small number of maternity roosts, which they return to repeatedly over the years. Maternity roosts are always deep in natural caves or abandoned mines with a narrow microclimate: moderate to high humidity and a temperature between 73 to 82 degrees Fahrenheit. Females give birth to a single pup in spring and pups usually take flight at seven weeks.
During nonbreeding season, in the cooler months of the year, colonies disperse from their permanent roosts. Often roosting in pairs, the bats seek out caves, overhangs, and vertical cracks as day roosts. They live just about everywhere, from rainforests to open woodlands and arid regions.
Ghosted Numbers
The fossil record indicates that, excepting for the southeastern region of Victoria and Tasmanian islands, the ghost bat was once widely distributed throughout Australia. Since the arrival of Europeans in the seventeenth century, however, ghost bats have contracted their habitat northward, with the species disappearing from central Australia by the early 1990s. Since that time, numbers have further declined by 80 percent, with the populations becoming disjunct and isolated. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature Lists the Australian ghost bat as Vulnerable.
Much of the decline is due to destruction of maternity roosting sites due to mining. Mining destroyed several caves at Mount Etna in central Queensland. Mount Consider Cave, also in Queensland, was destroyed as well. Currently, threats include limestone mining in the coastal enclave of Cooktown in northern Queensland. In Pilbara, Western Australia, ghost bats are threatened by mining for iron ore, as well as disturbances to old gold and copper mines.
Ghost bats are highly susceptible to disturbance from cavers and ecologists, which can lead to the abandonment of roosts and loss of pups. Even automobile traffic has been known to disturb these bats. In some areas the bats’ prey has been reduced because of livestock grazing and the expansion of weed species.
Since 2016, the Australian government has developed conservation advice for the ghost bat, including changes to fencing materials, reducing the disturbance of roosting sites, changes to livestock grazing, and educating the public on how to avoid disturbing roosting bats. And scientists have recently explored the possibility of reintroducing ghost bats into their former range. They found that Drovers Cave, in Drovers National Park, on the west coast of Australia, retained suitable temperature and humidity for the bats to reestablish maternity roosts. The park could also provide enough suitable prey, too.
These fierce false ghouls of the Australian skies—like so many native species—play an integral role in the Outback’s ecological balance. Spreading the word about these haunting beauties will help assure this species never truly become ghosts.
Paul Hormick, author of the environmental newsletter The Green Dispatch, has spent the last 22 years writing about music, food, and the environment.
