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Creating a native garden that attracts and supports bats is a great way to help local ecosystems. Bats are incredible natural pest controllers. The key is to provide food, water, and shelter using plants and features native to your region. Bats are some of the most effective natural pest controllers because of how much they eat, what they eat, and how they hunt.
Most bats in North America are insectivores, especially species like the Little Brown Bat.
A single bat can eat hundreds to over 1,000 insects per hour, and thousands in a single night.
That means fewer:
Many insects’ bats eat are agricultural pests, such as:
By reducing these populations, bats help farmers and gardeners use fewer chemical pesticides, which benefits the environment and saves money.
Because of their pest control, bats save agriculture billions of dollars annually worldwide by reducing crop damage and pesticide use.
Pennsylvania native bat species forage for insects. It’s important to incorporate native plants that attract night-flying insects like moths and beetles.
Focus on:
In your Pennsylvania area, good native choices include:
These plants create a thriving insect population—perfect bat food.
Like butterflies, bees, and other daytime insect pollinators, nocturnal pollinator habitat protection is key to their survival. For pollinating insects to reach adulthood, the life stage when they provide pollinator services, they must survive as eggs and larva. Most butterflies and moths overwinter as an egg, caterpillar, cocoon, or as adults.
Luna moth cocoons resemble leaf litter. This moth relies on the camouflage of its cocoon to overwinter. Leaving some of your leaves in your yard could make the difference for this moth trying to survive the winter. Photo courtesy of Dean Morley
Leaf litter is vital for over winter habitat and protection from predators. Often these fallen leaves become the first food for caterpillars when they emerge from eggs. In the case of the luna moth, larval cocoons are disguised as dried leaves to blend in with the environment and avoid predation.
Habitat for these important pollinators also include host plants for moths, beetles, and other insect pollinators to lay their eggs on, and they then provide food for the larval life stage. Host plants are essential with some pollinators depending on only one or two species of host plant for larval and species survival.
You can help by planting native pollinator gardens and including host plants where appropriate. When purchasing plants for your garden, look for native plants if possible, or for plants that are “pollinator safe” and not sprayed with pesticides.
