Marisol's Migration

Meet Marisol, the Mexican free-tailed bat (also called Brazilian free-tailed bats)! This is a replica approximately 2/3 of the bat’s natural size and she would weigh around 15 grams (3 nickels). She needs your help to migrate to Mexico and Latin America for the winter.

This travel bug is being tracked by hundreds of teachers, students and librarians. Marisol’s locations, cultures and people she meets will be used to teach children and adults about bats, geography and other peoples!

Please keep in touch and let all of us know about Marisol’s new friends and locations.

Thank you so very much for being part of this learning experience!

Congratulations! You have found one of the California Native Bat Conservancy’s travel bugs. We are a not-for-profit, all volunteer bat conservation, education and rescue group.

During the summer months, thousands of Mexican free-tailed bats live under the Yolo Causeway that spans the Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area located between Davis and West Sacramento, California.

Each summer night at dusk the bats, mostly female, emerge in a silent stream flying across the wildlife area. Later they disappear several miles away for an evening of feeding on insects, primarily moths.

As winter approaches and there are fewer insects to eat, the colony migrates to northern Mexico where food is more bountiful. Most bats that are going to migrate have flown south by November. A small colony stays behind to eat the fewer number of insects in the basin during the winter months.

Marisol needs to get to Mexico! After arriving in Mexico she will stay there until her migration back to northern California in late-March or April 2005. While in Mexico, please help Marisol travel to new destinations in Mexico and Latin America until her return in the spring.

If you find Marisol still in Latin America in April 2005, please help her start migrating north to her northern California summer roost under the Yolo Causeway.