What Is that Under My Tire?

I had a unique experience the other day. Approaching my car, leaving from work, I saw what I thought was an ornate rock or giant seed of some sort under the rear passenger tire of my Explorer. I thought that it would probably be a bad idea to just backup over it, so I went to kick it out of the way. As I touched it with the toe of my Nike running shoe, it moved and hissed at me.

It was a bat. Hiding under my tire!

Of course I screamed. Wouldn’t you if a rock just hissed at you?

Well, to make a potentially long story short, I moved my wagon forward to make it easier for the bat to move away and got a couple of co-workers to help me put it in a box. It was not a happy bat. Once in the box, it kept clicking and hissing, extending it’s wing (which reminded me of the creature from Jeepers Creepers). Then we called the building maintenance, who we think called animal control. I suspect it was sick or injured. Most likely it will be euthanized, but I hope it will be nursed back to health.

For those that are curious, it had a broad, flat body covered in whitish gray fur (thus my thought that it was an ornate rock — why would I suspect a bat?). I did a little research and I figure it was probably a Hoary Bat (Lasiurus cinereus), the largest bat in Maryland.

UPDATE: Maintenance picked up the bat and put it in a room for safekeeping. Animal control never came by. When maintenance went to check on the bat the next day, it was dead.