Bats in hot roosts experience some of the most thermally challenging environments of any endotherms, but little is known about how heat tolerance and evaporative cooling capacity varies among species. We investigated thermoregulation in three sympatric as well as roost temperatures in comparison to outside T a are available, we found limited evidence for a correlation between overall heat tolerance and the extent to which roosts are buffered from high T a .

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Although the Limpopo River is not perennial in its upper stretches in South Africa, the presence of a narrow riparian forest zone is expected to enhance bat diversity by promoting a wider range of foraging types, but the scale at which this effect may operate is not known. A recent, fine-scale model of bat diversity in Africa suggested that rivers may enhance species richness of bats, but that strong gradients in richness would occur next to rivers especially in savanna areas. We tested this idea by conducting acoustic surveys with bat detectors around six water bodies at distances from 0−12 km from the Limpopo River in two adjacent protected areas, the Mapungubwe National Park and the Venetia Limpopo Nature Reserve. We used a paired design, with each water body having detectors placed at and just away (500-750 m) from it. We found enhanced species richness, diversity and activity at MNP sites closer to the Limpopo (0-5 km) compared with VNR sites located 9−12 km from the Limpopo. Moreover, at VNR but not MNP, the bat community was dominated (32% of calls) by an arid-adapted generalist species, the Cape serotine (Neoromica capensis). Consistent with the proximity of structurally complex riparian vegetation, slow flying, clutter-feeding horseshoe bats (Rhinolophus spp.) were relatively more abundant (12% of calls) at MNP compared with VNR (0.7% of calls). This effect was highly accentuated when correcting for detectability of different species to bat detectors. Proximity to small, natural and artificial water bodies significantly enhanced both species richness and activity, but this effect was much more pronounced at sites > 5 km from the Limpopo compared with sites < 2 km from the Limpopo. We conclude that while major rivers with riparian zones can exert a significant impact on species richness, diversity, activity and community structure of insectivorous bats, this effect may only extend a few kilometres from the river. Protection of riparian zones along rivers in savannas is therefore critical to conserving intact and diverse bat communities.

Remote tissue biopsy sampling and satellite tagging are becoming widely used in large marine vertebrate studies because they allow the collection of a diverse suite of otherwise difficult-to-obtain data which are critical in understanding the ecology of these species and to their conservation and management. Researchers must carefully consider their methods not only from an animal welfare perspective, but also to ensure the scientific rigour and validity of their results. We report methods for shore-based, remote biopsy sampling and satellite tagging of killer whales Orcinus orca at Subantarctic Marion Island. The performance of these methods is critically assessed using 1) the attachment duration of low-impact minimally percutaneous satellite tags; 2) the immediate behavioural reactions of animals to biopsy sampling and satellite tagging; 3) the effect of researcher experience on biopsy sampling and satellite tagging; and 4) the mid- (1 month) and long- (24 month) term behavioural consequences. To study mid- and long-term behavioural changes we used multievent capture-recapture models that accommodate imperfect detection and individual heterogeneity. We made 72 biopsy sampling attempts (resulting in 32 tissue samples) and 37 satellite tagging attempts (deploying 19 tags). Biopsy sampling success rates were low (43%), but tagging rates were high with improved tag designs (86%). The improved tags remained attached for 26±14 days (mean ± SD). Individuals most often showed no reaction when attempts missed (66%) and a slight reaction–defined as a slight flinch, slight shake, short acceleration, or immediate dive–when hit (54%). Severe immediate reactions were never observed. Hit or miss and age-sex class were important predictors of the reaction, but the method (tag or biopsy) was unimportant. Multievent trap-dependence modelling revealed considerable variation in individual sighting patterns; however, there were no significant mid- or long-term changes following biopsy sampling or tagging.

Ten years ago, the genus-level and species-level taxonomy of African pipistrelloid bats was in a state of flux. In spite of advances in the past decade, gaps in collecting from species-rich regions like Angola have hampered efforts to revise this group. We report on new collections of pipistrelle-like bats from the poorly sampled central highlands of Angola (1000–1500 m a.s.l.) as well as comparative material from lower-lying areas of Eswatini and South Africa. Specimens identified as Neoromicia anchietae, collected 400–700 km east of the holotype locality in the western highlands of Angola, were genetically and morphologically distinctive from N. anchietae s.l. from South Africa and Eswatini. We describe herein this latter lineage as a distinct species from low-lying areas of south-eastern Africa, distinct from N. anchietae s.s., which is therefore restricted to the central and western Angolan highlands. We also identified shallow to deep genetic divergence between different African regions in other recognized pipistrelloid species, such as conspecificity between the long-eared species Laephotis angolensis from Angola and Laephotis botswanae from northern Botswana, northern Namibia and south-western Zambia. Our phylogeny supports a recently proposed generic classification of African pipistrelloid bats.

Bats are among the most heterothermic mammals, with nearly all species investigated under free-ranging conditions to date exhibiting some degree of daily torpor and/or hibernation. We investigated thermoregulation during late winter by seven Nycteris thebaica in a warm, semi-arid habitat in northern South Africa, using temperaturesensitive transmitters to measure skin temperature (T skin ). Unexpectedly, we found no evidence for any expression of daily torpor or hibernation based on a total of 86 days of data from 7 bats (one male and six females), despite air temperatures as low as ~ 10 ºC. Instead, daytime T skin was distributed unimodally with most values in the 33 -

A checklist of genera and species of the Pimeliinae (Tenebrionidae: Coleoptera) of the Vhembe Biosphere Reserve is provided. A total of 36 species are recorded. We provide brief biological notes on the tribes recorded from the Vhembe Region.

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