At the colony’s peak, around 500,000 bats roost under the I-35 bridge over McNeil Road in Round Rock. (Courtesy city of Round Rock)
Austin is well known for its estimated 1 million bats but Round Rock also has a large population living under a bridge on I-35 that city staff consider a “hidden gem.”
In early spring, bats that flew south for the winter will return to roost underneath the highway’s box-beam bridge of the McNeil intersection. The colony is about a third of the size of Austin’s South Congress Bridge colony, the largest urban bat colony in the world, according to Texas Parks and Wildlife…