The Southern Yellow Bat (Lasiurus ega), is a species of bat

Bat

Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera "hand" and pteron "wing") whose forelimbs form webbed wings, making them the only mammals naturally capable of true and sustained flight. By contrast, other mammals said to fly, such as flying squirrels, gliding possums, and colugos, glide rather than fly,...

 in the vesper bat

Vesper bat

Vesper bats , also known as Evening bats or Common bats, are the largest and best-known family of bats. They belong to the suborder Microchiroptera . There are over three hundred species distributed all over the world, on every continent except Antarctica...

 family, Vespertilionidae. It is native to South

South America

South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

, North

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 and Central America

Central America

Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...

, from the Rio Grande Valley

Rio Grande Valley

The Rio Grande Valley or the Lower Rio Grande Valley, informally called The Valley, is an area located in the southernmost tip of South Texas...

 of Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

 in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 to Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

. This species roosts in trees and vegetation. In Texas, their preferred roosting sites are the frond "skirts" of both wild and ornamental palm trees

Arecaceae

Arecaceae or Palmae , are a family of flowering plants, the only family in the monocot order Arecales. There are roughly 202 currently known genera with around 2600 species, most of which are restricted to tropical, subtropical, and warm temperate climates...

, such as Sabal mexicana

Sabal mexicana

Sabal mexicana is a species of palm tree that is native to North America. Common names include Mexican Palmetto, Texas Palmetto, Texas Sabal Palm, Rio Grande Palmetto, and Palma de Mícharos. The specific epithet, "mexicana", is Latin for "of Mexico." It is closely related to S...

and Washingtonia robusta

Washingtonia robusta

Washingtonia robusta is a palm tree native to western Sonora and Baja California Sur in northwestern Mexico. It grows to tall, rarely up to . The leaves have a petiole up to long, and a palmate fan of leaflets up to 1 m long. The inflorescence is up to long, with numerous small pale orange-pink...

. These are collections of dead fronds against the trunk and provide a favored dark habitat for the bats. Palms are also home to insects, which the bats eat.

The Southern Yellow Bat is a nocturnal species, foraging for one to two hours after sunset on small to medium-sized flying insect

Insect

Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...

s. They usually feed near their roost, and go no farther than necessary for water.