Common Pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pipistrellus)

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Common Pipistrelle

Mammal

Tiny pipistrelle bat, small enough to fit in a matchbox

The Common Pipistrelle is the UK's commonest and one of its smallest bats — tiny enough to fit in a matchbox. It is the bat most people see flickering over a garden at dusk, hunting thousands of midges a night.

Seasonal Behaviour:

In summer, mother bats all join together in one place (like a warm attic or an old tree) to have their babies. This is called a 'maternity roost'. They keep their babies (called 'pups') warm and fly out at dusk to hunt for insects.

💡 Fun Facts

A single, tiny Common Pipistrelle can eat up to 3,000 small insects — mostly midges and gnats — in one night.
It is the UK's commonest and most widespread bat, and also one of the smallest: its body is shorter than your thumb and it weighs about the same as a 20p coin.
It was only discovered to be a separate species in the 1990s, when bat detectors revealed that two kinds of 'pipistrelle' were squeaking at different pitches — and never breeding with each other.

🔍 How to spot it

Size: Tiny — body smaller than your thumb and about the weight of a 20p coin; one of the UK's smallest bats.
Markings: Golden-brown fur, a little paler below, with a dark face, ears and wings — like a little dark 'bandit mask'.
Features: Short, triangular ears and a short, blunt flap inside the ear; no strange flap on its nose (some bats, like the horseshoe bats, have one).
Behaviour: Fast, jerky, twisting flight about 2 to 10 m up, turning again and again to snatch insects; appears about 20 minutes after sunset, often round street lights and gardens.
Where & when: Everywhere — gardens, parks, farmland and towns right across the UK; the bat most people see flickering over a garden at dusk. Roosts in buildings.
Easily confused with: The almost-identical soprano pipistrelle looks the same to our eyes; experts tell the two apart by the pitch of their calls on a special detector (the soprano calls a little higher).

📅 Through the Year

Hibernation:November to March
Active:April to October

🕸️ Food Web

CarnivoreClick to explore how the Common Pipistrelle fits into the ecosystem!

Explore in Food Web

Name Story

Pipistrellus pipistrellus

means “little bat — and, deep down, 'the evening one'”

What does its name mean?

pipistrello — batItalian
vespertilio — batLatin
vesper — eveningLatin

Pipistrellus simply means 'little bat' — and it is one of our tiniest, small enough to tuck into a matchbox. Follow the word back through Italian and Latin, though, and hidden at its root is vesper, meaning 'evening' — the very time this bat flutters out to hunt.

🎴 Field Research Data Cards

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