A peer-reviewed version of this preprint was published in PeerJ on 4 December 2018. View the peer-reviewed version (peerj.com/articles/6065), which is the preferred citable publication unless you specifically need to cite this preprint. Czaplewski NJ, Menard KL, Peachey WD. 2018. Mesquite bugs, other insects, and a bat in the diet of pallid bats in southeastern Arizona. PeerJ 6:e6065 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.6065 Mesquite bugs and other insects in the diet of pallid bats in southeastern Arizona Nicholas J Czaplewski Corresp., 1 , Katrina L Menard 2 , William D Peachey 3 1 Section of Vertebrate Paleontology, Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, Norman, Oklahoma, United States of America 2 Section of Recent Invertebrates, Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, Norman, Oklahoma, United States 3 Sonoran Science Solutions, Tucson, Arizona, United States Corresponding Author: Nicholas J Czaplewski Email address:
[email protected] The pallid bat (Antrozous pallidus) is a species of arid and semiarid western North America, inhabiting ecoregions ranging from desert to oak and pine forest. Considered primarily insectivorous predators on large arthropods but taking occasional small vertebrate prey, pallid bats were recently shown to be at least seasonally omnivorous; they demonstrate unusual dietary flexibility and opportunism in certain parts of their geographic range and at different times of year. In a few areas they take nectar from cactus flowers and eat cactus fruit pulp and seeds. Until recently mesquite bugs were primarily tropical- subtropical inhabitants of Mexico and Central America but have since occupied the southwestern United States where mesquite trees occur. Pallid bats regularly use night roosts as temporary shelters in which to process and consume large arthropods caught near their foraging areas.