Mehely's horseshoe bat has a patchy Mediterranean range, roosts in caves and feeds mostly on moths.
Its dense fur is gray-brown on the back and white underneath.
Mehely’s horseshoe bats use echoes from high-pitched calls to find their way and locate prey. In Bulgarian populations, male call pitch tracked body size. During the mating season, females preferred males with higher-pitched calls, and those males fathered more offspring. Researchers combined field observations, body measurements, behavioral tests, and genetic evidence to examine how echolocation could also carry information for mate choice.
Calls helped bats orient and locate food while also signaling traits used by females when choosing a mate. In September 2010, researchers caught bats in two northeastern Bulgarian caves during mating season and released them at their capture sites in good health after testing.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
The 2014 study reports that Mehely’s horseshoe bats were protected in Bulgaria. Researchers worked under government permits and returned captured bats to their caves in good health after testing.