Distribution, Type Locality, and Habits of the Fish-Eating Bat, Pizonyx vivesi

Reeder, William G.; Norris, Kenneth S.

doi:10.2307/1376075

Cited by 27 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…leporinus is the only bat specialized for fish as a major component of its diet, although a few other bats take fish occasionally, such as myotid bats of the subgenera Pizonyx and Leuconoe (e.g., Brosset 1966;Brosset and Debouteville 1966;Findley 1972;Reeder and Norris 1954;Robson 1984). leporinus is the only bat specialized for fish as a major component of its diet, although a few other bats take fish occasionally, such as myotid bats of the subgenera Pizonyx and Leuconoe (e.g., Brosset 1966;Brosset and Debouteville 1966;Findley 1972;Reeder and Norris 1954;Robson 1984).…”

Section: Prey Spectrummentioning

confidence: 99%

Fishing and echolocation behavior of the greater bulldog bat, Noctilio leporinus, in the field

Schnitzler

Kalko

Kaipf

et al. 1994

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

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When hunting for fish Noctilio leporinus uses several strategies. In high search flight it flies within 20-50 cm of the water surface and emits groups of two to four echolocation signals, always containing at least one pure constant frequency (CF) pulse and one mixed CF-FM pulse consisting of a CF component which is followed by a frequency-modulated (FM) component. The pure CF signals are the longest, with an average duration of 13.3 ms and a maximum of 17 ms. The CF component of the CF-FM signals averages 8.9 ms, the FM sweeps 3.9 ms. The CF components have frequencies of 52.8-56.2 kHz and the FM components have an average bandwidth of 25.9 kHz. A bat in high search flight reacts to jumping fish with "pointed dips" at the spot where a fish has broken the surface. As it descends to the water surface the bat shows the typical approach pattern of all bats with decreasing pulse duration and pulse interval. A jumping fish reveals itself by a typical pattern of temporary echo glints, reflected back to the bat from its body and from the water disturbance. In low search flight N. leporinus drops to a height of only 4~ 10 cm, with body parallel to the water, legs extended straight back and turned slightly downward, and feet cocked somewhat above the line of the legs and poised within 2-4 cm of the water surface. In this situation N. leporinus emits long series of short CF-FM pulses with an average duration of 5.6 ms (CF 3.1 and FM 2.6) and an average pulse interval of 20 ms, indicating that it is looking for targets within a short range. N. leporinus also makes pointed dips during low search flight by rapidly snapping the feet into the water at the spot where it has localized a jumping fish or disturbance. In the random rake mode, N. leporinus drops to the water surface, lowers its feet and drags its claws through the water in relatively straight lines for up to 10 m. The echolocation behavior is similar to that of high search flight. This indicates that in this hunting mode N. leporinus is not pursuing specific targets, and that raking is a random or statistical search for surface fishes. When raking, the bat uses two strategies. In directed random rake it rakes through patches of water where fish jumping activity is high. Our interpretation is that the bat detects this activity by echolocation but prefers not to concentrate on a single jumping fish. In the absence of jumping fish, after flying for several minutes without any dips, N. leporinus starts to make very long rakes in areas where it has hunted successfully before (memorydirected random rake). Hunting bats caught a fish approximately once in every 50~00 passes through the hunting area.

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Section: Prey Spectrummentioning

confidence: 99%

Fishing and echolocation behavior of the greater bulldog bat, Noctilio leporinus, in the field

Schnitzler

Kalko

Kaipf

et al. 1994

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

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“…For example, in Europe, gaffing of prey from the water surface is a technique used by Myotis daubentonii , Myotis dasycneme and Myotis cappacini (Siemers et al ., 2001 b ). In Northern America, Myotis lucifugus catches insects from the water surface (Barclay, 1991), while Myotis vivesi catch fish (Reeder & Norris, 1954). In south‐east Asia and Australasia, Myotis adversus catches insects by gaffing (Jones & Rayner, 1991) and Myotis macrotarsus and Myotis stalkeri have large feet, typical of bats that gaff prey (Findley, 1972).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategy‐switching in the gaffing bat

Todd

Waters

2007

Journal of Zoology

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Foraging in Daubenton's bats Myotis daubentonii, at two altitudinal locations along a river gradient in North Wales was investigated in relation to aerial insect density and to the density of prey on the water surface. Prey capture in Daubenton's bats consisted of aerial hawking, where prey was taken in the air, and trawling, where bats gaffed invertebrates from the water surface. Aerial hawking accounted for 86% of all prey capture attempts, despite aerial insect availability falling close to zero for much of the night. Conversely, prey density on the water surface was an order of magnitude higher than aerial prey density and increased through the night due to aquatic invertebrate drift. At the higher altitude site, M. daubentonii switched prey capture strategy to gaffing, possibly to reflect this change in prey availability on the water's surface, but at the lower altitude site, they maintained aerial hawking as the preferred strategy. The switch to gaffing may be inhibited by the significant downstream accumulation of large numbers of inedible exuviae of caddis flies, Trichoptera, at the low-altitude site, which form both acoustic clutter and increase the probability of capturing inedible prey, making foraging less efficient. These small altitudinal differences in foraging strategy should be factored into the design of future altitudinal bat foraging studies and if found to be a widespread strategy, taken into consideration by conservation planners when reviewing the habitat requirements of Daubenton's bats in river valleys within the United Kingdom.

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“…To date, 3 bat species show fishing behavior in the field, Noctilio leporinus (Bloedel 1955;Novick and Dale 1971;Schnitzler et al 1994), Myotis vivesi (Altenbach 1989;Reeder and Norris 1954), and Myotis ricketti (Rickett's bigfooted myotis- Ma et al 2003). Fishing behavior also has been observed for a few species in the laboratory, such as in Noctilio albiventris (Suthers and Fattu 1973) and Myotis daubentonii (Siemers et al 2001a).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%