Three bat communities were studied for 1 year at each of two localities in the Panama Canal Zone and one locality in western Costa Rica. Removal sampling and banding techniques using Japanese mist nets were employed to document community structure, food habits. reproductive cycles, and movement patterns of these bats.Results indicated that 27-31 species occur at or near ground level at each locality. Species diversity, as measured by H', was highest in the Costan Rican community; each community contained 3-4 common species and many uncommon species. Based on body size and general food habits, niche overlap appears to be greatest among small to intermediate-sized insectivores and frugivores, many of which, however, are apparently uncommon. Four basic reproductive patterns are found among the species. Most frugivores are seasonally polyestrous whereas some insectivores are monestrous and at least one is polyestrous. It is postulated that in both insectivores and frugivores birth peaks coincide with maximum food levels. Recapture patterns of several species suggest that home range size may be positively correlated with body size; omnivorous species may have larger home ranges than similarly sized species with more restricted diets.

SERIES PUBLICATIONS OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION Emphasis upon publication as a means of "diffusing knowledge" was expressed by the first Secretary of the Smithsonian. In his formal plan for the Institution, Joseph Henry outlined a program that included the following statement: "It is proposed to publish a series of reports, giving an account of the new discoveries in science, and of the changes made from year to year in all branches of knowledge." This theme of basic research has been adhered to through the years by thousands of titles issued in series publications under the Smithsonian imprint, commencing with Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge in 1848 and continuing with the following active series:

The substantial body of research on Holarctic ground squirrels amassed over the past century documents considerable variability in morphological, cytogenetic, ecological, and behavioral attributes in the genus Spermophilus F. Cuvier, 1825. Recent molecular phylogenetic studies suggest that the traditionally recognized genera Marmota Blumenbach, 1779 (marmots), Cynomys Rafinesque, 1817 (prairie dogs), and Ammospermophilus Merriam, 1892 (antelope ground squirrels) render Spermophilus paraphyletic, potentially suggesting that multiple generic-level lineages should be credited within Spermophilus. Herein, we recognize 8 genera formerly subsumed in Spermophilus, each of which is morphologically diagnosable, craniometrically distinctive, and recovered as a monophyletic clade in phylogenetic analyses utilizing the mitochondrial gene cytochrome b. Generic-level names are available for each of these ground squirrel assemblages, most of which are exclusively or predominantly North American in distribution (Notocitellus A.

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We present the first comprehensive taxonomic revision and review the biology of the olingos, the endemic Neotropical procyonid genus Bassaricyon, based on most specimens available in museums, and with data derived from anatomy, morphometrics, mitochondrial and nuclear DNA, field observations, and geographic range modeling. Species of Bassaricyon are primarily forest-living, arboreal, nocturnal, frugivorous, and solitary, and have one young at a time. We demonstrate that four olingo species can be recognized, including a Central American species (Bassaricyon gabbii), lowland species with eastern, cis-Andean (Bassaricyon alleni) and western, trans-Andean (Bassaricyon medius) distributions, and a species endemic to cloud forests in the Andes. The oldest evolutionary divergence in the genus is between this last species, endemic to the Andes of Colombia and Ecuador, and all other species, which occur in lower elevation habitats. Surprisingly, this Andean endemic species, which we call the Olinguito, has never been previously described; it represents a new species in the order Carnivora and is the smallest living member of the family Procyonidae. We report on the biology of this new species based on information from museum specimens, niche modeling, and fieldwork in western Ecuador, and describe four Olinguito subspecies based on morphological distinctions across different regions of the Northern Andes.