Essex Bats – Systematic List – Listed Alphabetically in Family Groups Those Species Known to Occur in Norsey Wood are Suffixed NW (Both the Common and Soprano Pipistrelle are the species that are most frequently encountered within the Wood)
British (English) Recorded Scientific Local Name Within NW Name
Barbastelle Bat Barbastella barbastellus Serotine Bat NW * Eptesicus serotinus Daubenton’s Bat Myotis daubentonii Natterer’s Bat Myotis nattereri Leisler’s Bat Nyctalus leisleri Noctule Bat NW ** Nyctalus noctula Nathusius’s Pipistrelle Pipistrellus nathusii Common Pipistrelle NW Pipistrellus pipistrellus Soprano Pipistrelle NW Pipistrellus pygmaus Brown Long-eared Bat NW Plecotus auritus
Ongoing cutting-edge research in the Wood will most likely identify further species and also reaffirm what is already known. * = Known to be in the area. ** = Represented by the occasional individual only.
Latin names explained The local name of a particular animal or plant species spoken in different countries can cause great confusion in translation. So in the 18th century, an inspired Swedish zoologist and botanist called Carl Linnaeus, came up with a system of a twin Latin name for every different lifeform that could be understood internationally. That scientific approach has been used ever since (called Binomial Nomenclature!). Since those early days, modern scientific studies using DNA samples have refined how the natural world is classified but we still use the same principle of naming a particular species as Linnaeus invented.
J.H.Smart May 2018 – Data supplied from the Norsey Wood central records. Thanks to the Bat Conservation Trust for making available the bat images.