...greater in the bottoms than in the uplands. The prairie deer mouse and the short-tailed shrew were taken at greater rates in the uplands than in the bottoms. The swamp rabbit (state-endangered) once occurred in several southwestern Indiana counties, but currently occurs along the Wabash River mainly in the north and south portions of Gibson County. The population of swamp rabbits in the state seems to be relatively stable at about 80 animals. The bat community of the lower Wabash River from southern Vigo County south to the Ohio River is particularly interesting. Through 1999, there were 1439 bats, including nine of the 10 species of bats that currently occur in Indiana, captured in the Prairie Creek region of southern Vigo County. By decreasing abundance, the bats are the evening bat (state-endangered), big brown bat, northern myotis, red bat, little brown myotis, eastern pipistrelle, Indiana myotis (federally-endangered), silver-haired bat, and hoary bat. All of these species occur south to the Ohio River. Only female and young evening bats occur in Vigo County, but adult males also occur in Posey County near the Ohio River.

Keywords: Bats, rabbits, rodents, shrews, Wabash River bottoms

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Starting in 1962, a series of randomly selected 25 X 25m plots in Vigo County was used to learn about the small mammals of the county (Table 1) (Whitaker 1967). However, the Wabash River flows through Vigo County from north to south, and the data from the river bottoms were not examined separately from the data for the entire county.

In addition, we undertook a study of the bats of the Wabash and Ohio drainages in southwest Indiana (Whitaker & Gummer 2001). As part of this latter study, on 25 July 1994, we mist-netted for bats on lower Prairie Creek in the Wabash River bottoms (Whitaker 1997, 2004) and captured 15 bats of six species, as follows: evening bat (Nycticeius humeralis, 6), red bat (Lasiurus borealis, 2), big brown bat (Eptesicus fuscus, 2), eastern pipistrelle, (Pipistrellus subflavus, 2), northern myotis (Myotis septentrionalis, 2), and Indiana myotis (Myotis sodalis, 1). This proved to be one of the most productive localities for bats in Indiana, and led to much more study of the bats of the Prairie Creek area.

Twelve species of bats occur or did occur in Indiana, although one species, the southeastern myotis (Myotis austroriparius) is apparently extirpated, and the big-eared bat (Corynorhinus rafinesquii occurs only accidentally in the state. In addition, the only gray bat maternity colony in the state is at Sellersburg, just north of Louisville. Therefore, it might occur along the Ohio River, but would not be likely along the Wabash River. No evening bats or Indiana myotis were taken along the Ohio (Table 2). The silver-haired bat is not present in summer in Indiana, as it has its young to the north of the state, and it occurs in Indiana only during the spring and fall migrations. No silver-haired bats were captured in the Ohio or lower Wabash valley. Because netting was done in summer, few if any silver-haired bats were expected.

The objectives of this paper are to present information on the Wabash River Bottoms and to compare it with the small mammals (Insectivora, Rodentia) of the uplands of Vigo County, Indiana, and also to compare data on the bats...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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