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Myotis vivesi, the fish-eating bat or fish-eating myotis, is a species of bat that lives around the Gulf of California, and feeds on fish and . It is the largest species of the genus mouse-eared bat in the Americas, and has exceptionally large feet, which it uses in hunting. It was described in 1901 by Auguste Ménégaux. It was previously considered the only member of the Myotis subgenus Mouse-eared bat, but Pizonyx is now considered to contain all American Myotis species, along with two Eurasian ones.
In common with other fish-eating bats, Myotis vivesi has long, efficient wings, with high aspect ratio and low wing loading, (1998). 9780198503224, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198503224 and large feet with sharp claws. The uropatagium (the wing surface between the hind legs) bears a fringe of silky hairs of unknown function; the uropatagium itself is used in hunting.
The fur is around long, and varies in colour from fawn to brown, with the base of each hair being dark grey. In common with other piscivorous species of Myotis, the underside of M. vivesi is pale.
M. vivesi prefers to roost either in or under rocks revealed by . They sometimes share their roosts with least petrels ( Halocyptena microsoma) and black petrels ( Oceanodroma melania). On many islands in the Gulf of California where these petrels nest, the western whiptail is a known predator of their eggs and chicks, and the petrels generally show only fearful responses towards the lizards and are capable of doing little to defend their offspring. However M. vivesi that share roosts with these petrels swiftly react by biting and flapping when the lizards are detected, effectively warding the reptiles off. This may be an example of a Symbiosis in which the bats help defend the young of nesting petrels, increasing the chances of survival for petrel chicks.
The closest relatives of M. vivesi are other New World species of Myotis which are not adapted to piscivory, rather than the other piscivorous bats in the genus. This indicates that the to catching fish in M. vivesi and other species are the result of convergent evolution. No fossils attributable to M. vivesi have been discovered. A fossil species of Pizonyx, Pizonyx wheeleri, was named by Walter Dalquest and Daniel Patrick in 1993 from the Miocene of Texas, but according to a 1993 review by Nicholas Czaplewski, this species instead belongs to the genus Antrozous and may not even be distinct from the living species Antrozous pallidus.
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