Second capture of Promops centralis (Chiroptera) in French Guiana after 28 years of mist-netting and description of its echolocation and distress calls

Abstract

The Amazonian basin harbours some of the most bat-diverse ecosystems worldwide. Yet, information on elusive, high-flying bat species such as Molossidae is scarce or virtually missing in the literature, which hampers conservation efforts both locally and globally. The recent advent of new technologies specifically designed to survey bats, such as passive ultrasound detectors and acoustic lures, has significantly increased understanding of bat ecology and distribution, and has allowed researchers to gather new and valuable information which was impossible to collect in the past. We undertook a rapid bat diversity assessment in French Guiana using acoustic lures to aid in capturing high-flying insectivorous bat species. Here we report the second and third capture record of Promops centralis (Chiroptera, Molossidae) for French Guiana, captured after 28 years since the first and only captures so far in the county. One individual was a post-lactating female and represents the first record of breeding P. centralis in French Guiana. We provide (i) morphometric and acoustic data (including the species’ distress calls) as well as detail photography to aid in species identification; and (ii) COI and CytB sequences of the two individuals (first mitochondrial sequences for French Guiana).

Description of the echolocation pulses of insectivorous bats with new records for southwest Colombia

“…In several studies carried out on the species T. brasiliensis values of Fstart (Jung et (Gillam and Montero 2016) are similar to those we report here, supporting the idea that the differences between the variables for this species change depending on the presence of conspeci cs and are not related to habitat structure (Ratcliffe et al 2004). Despite the fact that Molossidae species exhibit high plasticity in their echolocation calls, the spectral and temporal variables of P. centralis presented distinctive pulses as has been reported in other studies (Jung et al 2014;Froidevaux et al 2020). Regardless that P. centralis may present a exible adjustment of the echolocation system to face sensory challenges in the environment, the identity of each echolocation call was preserved.…”

Parent–offspring and inter-offspring responses to conspecific versus heterospecific distress calls in 2 sympatric birds

“…Among vocal signals, distress calls are a common form of communication in the animal kingdom. Many species of mammals ( Fenton et al 1976 ; Rendall et al 2009 ; Froidevaux et al 2020 ; Hörmann et al 2021 ), birds ( Brémond and Aubin 1990 ; Conover 1994 ; Benedict 2007 ), reptiles ( Roberto and Botero-Arias 2013 ; Ruiz-Monachesi and Labra 2020 ), and amphibians ( De Toledo et al 2009 ) emit distress calls. Distress calls are a type of alarm call related to anti-predator defense or calling for help ( Magrath et al 2015 ).…”