Bats live in all 50 U.S. states, from the tropical forests of Hawaii to the remote stretches of interior Alaska. The country is home to more than 40 species, and their distribution spans nearly every landscape: deserts, forests, mountains, coastlines, and major cities. Where you’ll find them depends on the species, the season, and the availability of roosts and food.
The Southwest: America’s Bat Hotspot
The desert Southwest supports the greatest diversity of bat species in the country. Arizona alone is home to 28 species, more than any other state. The warm climate, abundance of caves and mine shafts, and year-round insect activity make it ideal habitat. Many of these species are found nowhere else in the U.S., having crossed north from Mexico into the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts.
Some southwestern bats depend entirely on desert plants. The lesser long-nosed bat migrates north along the Mexican coast each spring, feeding on the flowers of organ pipe cactus and other columnar cacti before arriving in southern Arizona. The Mexican long-tongued bat follows a similar route, tracking the bloom of agave plants northward and arriving in Arizona by early summer. These pollinator bats are critical to the survival of the plants they feed on, and vice versa.
Other desert species are more generalist. The California leaf-nosed bat hunts insects across the Sonoran and Mojave scrublands, roosting in caves and old mine shafts by day. The western pipistrelle, the smallest bat in the U.S. at roughly 3 grams, is a desert forager that emerges before dark, often the first bat visible in the evening sky. The cave myotis is found throughout the Sonoran Desert except in the driest western stretches. And the big brown bat, one of the most widespread species in North America, roosts in the desert inside buildings and occasionally in woodpecker holes carved into saguaro cacti.
Texas and the Largest Colonies
Texas is home to the most famous bat spectacle in the country. The Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue Bridge in downtown Austin hosts the largest urban bat colony in the world: an estimated 1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats. It’s a maternity colony, and females raise roughly 750,000 pups there each year. On summer evenings, the colony’s nightly emergence draws crowds of tourists and locals who watch the bats pour out from beneath the bridge at sunset.
The Mexican free-tailed bat is the most common bat in the Southwest, with a U.S. population exceeding 100 million. Their cave colonies are staggeringly dense, packing in at roughly 2,700 individuals per square meter. Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico is another iconic site, where hundreds of thousands of free-tailed bats spiral out of the cave entrance each evening from spring through fall. When winter arrives and moth populations move south, the bats follow them into Mexico, returning north again in spring.
Eastern and Midwestern Forests
The eastern half of the country supports fewer species than the West, but several are widespread. The northern long-eared bat, now federally listed as endangered, ranges across 37 states and the District of Columbia, from Maine to Montana and south to Georgia and Louisiana. It roosts under loose bark, in tree cavities, and in caves during winter hibernation. The little brown bat and big brown bat are similarly common across the East and Midwest, roosting in barns, attics, church steeples, and other buildings as readily as in natural sites.
These eastern populations have been devastated by white-nose syndrome, a fungal disease that wakes hibernating bats during winter, causing them to burn through their fat reserves and starve. The disease has now been confirmed in 42 states, reaching as far west as Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. The fungus itself has been detected in additional states including Arizona, California, Nevada, and Utah. In some hibernation caves in the Northeast, white-nose syndrome has killed more than 90% of the bats present, fundamentally reshaping where and in what numbers eastern bats are found today.
Alaska and Hawaii
Alaska has seven known bat species, which surprises many residents. The little brown bat is the most common and widespread, found across Southeast, Southcentral, Interior, and Western Alaska. It’s the only species confirmed in the state’s more remote northern and western regions. The hoary bat, one of the largest bats in North America, also occurs in Alaska.
Hawaii has just one native land mammal: the Hawaiian hoary bat. It’s closely related to the hoary bats found on the mainland and is the only bat species native to the islands. Its population is small and considered vulnerable, making it a conservation priority.
Where Bats Roost in Cities and Towns
Bats are not just wilderness animals. As urban development has expanded, bat populations in cities have grown increasingly common. They roost under bridges, in vacant buildings, inside attics, and in the trees of parks and residential neighborhoods. Cities offer a combination of artificial roosts, water sources, and streetlamps that attract insects, essentially concentrating food in a small area.
If you live in a house with gaps in the eaves or an unsealed attic, there’s a reasonable chance bats have investigated it. Big brown bats and little brown bats are the species most commonly found in buildings. Community parks and homeowners can install bat houses to provide alternative roosting sites, which can reduce the likelihood of bats settling into attics while still supporting local populations.
Seasonal Shifts in Distribution
Not all U.S. bats stay in one place year-round. In the northern states, solitary tree-dwelling species like the red bat and silver-haired bat migrate south when winter approaches, following insect availability. In the southern states, colonial species like the Mexican free-tailed bat also migrate, crossing into Mexico for the winter months and returning in spring as their prey moves north again.
Species that don’t migrate typically hibernate. Townsend’s big-eared bat, found across the western U.S., hibernates in cold caves and mines, folding its oversized ears flat against its body to conserve heat. Maternity colonies of up to 200 females form in spring and summer, then disperse in fall as bats seek out hibernation sites. This means the same species can occupy very different locations depending on the time of year, a detail that matters if you’re trying to spot bats or understand why they appear in your area seasonally.
Rabies Risk by Region
Bats are the leading source of human rabies cases in the United States. Among the 42 domestically acquired human rabies cases reported between 2000 and 2024, bat contact was responsible for 35 of them, or 83%. In 2024 alone, two people died from bat-associated rabies, one in Minnesota and one in California.
That said, the overall infection rate in bats is low. Among bats submitted for testing (which skews toward sick or behaving-abnormally animals), roughly 5% test positive for rabies. The risk is not concentrated in any single region. It exists wherever bats are found, which is every state. The practical takeaway: never handle a bat with bare hands, and if you wake up to find a bat in your bedroom, contact your local health department, since bites can be small enough to go unnoticed.