Canary long-eared bat

The Canary long-eared bat, Plecotus teneriffae, also called the Canary big-eared bat or Tenerife long-eared bat, is a species of vesper bat found only in the Canary Islands. It feeds mainly on moths and roosts in caves, lava tubes and abandoned buildings. The species was described in 1907 by the British mammalogist Gerald Edwin Hamilton Barrett-Hamilton from specimens in the British Museum of Natural History, and its name refers to Tenerife, where the type specimen was collected near La Orotava. The International Union for Conservation of Nature rates it as critically endangered because its area of occurrence is under 3,000 square kilometres, it is known from fewer than five locations, and its population and habitat are shrinking. Only two breeding colonies are known, on La Palma and Tenerife, and the remaining population is estimated at 500 to 2,000 bats. It is protected under Spanish law, the Bonn Convention and the Berne Convention.