This bat catches food while flying close to the water surface. Records from northwestern Germany include seasonal passage and wintering.
The back is gray-brown and the underside is paler. It has relatively short ears and large feet.
Artificial light at night can obstruct commuting routes used by light-averse bats and fragment habitat. Pond bats forage above water and use waterways to travel between roosts and feeding areas. At five bridges, researchers tested four light spectra at 5 and 20 lux, with dark periods for comparison. A microphone array reconstructed 703 passing-bat tracks to measure flight speed and straightness.
Flight speed did not change in the presence of light, regardless of spectrum. Straightness differed from the other light conditions only under 3000 K white light. The researchers switched spectrum and intensity at each bridge and compared bat tracks over the waterways.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
In the bridge experiment, flight-path straightness differed from the other light treatments only under 3000 K white light. Flight speed was unaffected by the presence or spectrum of light.