Bat predator-prey interactions are still poorly known. Following this diagnosis, this work aims to report an event of opportunistic predation of silky short-tailed bat (Carollia brevicauda) by Long-furred woolly mouse opossum (Marmosa demerarae) in the Brazilian Amazon. The event took place on April 10, 2021, in a cocoa plantation. The bat individual that was preyed upon was an inactive adult female trapped in a mist net, approximately 40 cm from the ground. The predation of bats that are trapped in mist nets reinforces the idea of opportunistic predation and may explain the consumption of a vertebrate by an insectivorous marsupial.

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Bats provide essential ecosystem services and some are cave dependent. Caves favour the association of bats with ectoparasite Diptera, however, they are poorly sampled in the Amazon biome. Here we present the first description of a community of bats and bat flies from the largest sandstone cave in Brazil, the Planaltina cave, located in the municipality of Brasil Novo, state of Pará. Diptera were removed from captured bats and taken to the laboratory for identification. From nine species of bats belonging to four families we recorded 17 species of Diptera, 13 were monoxenous. A possible explanation for the monoxenous parasites collected is that flies have poor survival in unusual hosts. These results are an indicator that the Streblid species are host-specific since even if the hosts take refuge in the same cave, they will not share their parasites. Therefore, the present study provides important information on the parasite-host dynamics in a cave, thus highlighting the importance of cave as are essential shelters for bat species and, despite reported cases of cohabitation, mixed colonies are unlikely to form.

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This study shows the abundance of contamination by plastic microfibers (PMs) and the first record of contamination by PMs in bats. Additionally, we tried to understand the mechanism of the environmental contamination of bats. Therefore, the digestive and respiratory tracts of 25 species of adult bats were extracted for analysis. Bats were captured in different locations in the Brazilian Amazon (Altamira, Bragança, Brasil Novo, Medicilândia, Nova Timboteua, Placas, Uruará and Vitória do Xingu, all in the state of Pará). The results showed that all species were contaminated with PMs in at least one of the analyzed systems. For the digestive system, the form of contamination occurs through bioaccumulation and biomagnification by the ingestion of contaminated food or water. While for the respiratory system, contamination occurs through the inhalation of PMs suspended in the atmospheric air. The different foraging characteristics of bats, the type of capture strategy for this food, and the type of habitat reinforce the idea that plastic contaminants are present in all environments.

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