Frequency of leucism in a colony of Anoura geoffroyi (Chiroptera: Phyllostomidae) roosting in a ferruginous cave in Brazil

Abstract

We provide the first report of the frequency of leucism for a species of Neotropical bat. Leucism is an anomaly of the skin pigmentation of an animal that manifests itself as the total or partial loss of the natural color of the species, and can affect part of or the entire body. During a study involving capture and marking individuals of a population of A. geoffroyi residing in a cave in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, seven individuals with some degree of depigmentation were recorded out of 616 individuals marked, for a frequency of 1.1%. Since leucism is due to recessive gene expression, these findings may indicate that the population is isolated and possesses a high level of endogamy. Factors that may be responsible for this condition in the studied population remain unknown.

Species richness, occurrence and rarity of bats in Brazilian caves

“…Lonchophylla dekeyseri is another example, whose distribution is restricted (endemic) and is highly associated with caves. Interestingly, species such as A. geoffroyi and those belonging to the genus Pteronotus can form colonies with high abundance, but because they tend to use very specific caves, there are few occasional records for such roosts in Brazil (Leal & Bernard, 2021; Otálora‐Ardila et al., 2019; Reis et al., 2019). This exemplifies that the discussion on rare species is a complex matter, since the species´ rarity may not be associated with low abundances alone but also related to how specific or uncommon the type of roost and habitat requirements these species may have.…”

Registro de desorden cromático en Trachops cirrhosus (Spix, 1823) (Chiroptera: Phyllostomidae) en la Amazonia del Ecuador

“…These hypopigmentary disorders have been reported in several bat species of the Molossidae, Mormoopidae, Phyllostomidae, and Vespertilionidae families in many Neotropical countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico and Venezuela (Geiger & Pacheco 2006, Ruelas et al 2016, Medina & López 2010, Marin-Vasquez et al 2010, Idoeta et al 2011, López-Wilchis & León 2012, Rocha et al 2013, Olarte-González et al 2014, Tello et al 2014, Trujillo & Barahona 2014, Romano et al 2015, Mello-Torres & Salazar-Candelle 2016, Zalapa et al 2016, Mejía-Quintanilla et al 2017, Hernández-Aguilar & Santos-Moreno 2018, Escobar-Anleu & Mora 2018, Reis et al 2019, Borloti et al 2019, Pereira et al 2022, Santos-Moreno & Hernández-Aguilar 2022. The manifestation of these disorders is unusual in wild mammals (Abreu et al 2013), and various authors associate it to ecological and genetic factors, the isolation of populations and inbreeding, or exposure to chemical substances or radiation (Bensch et al 2000, Moller et al 2013, Beninato et al 2020.…”

Distúrbios Cromáticos em Molossus molossus (Mammalia: Chiroptera) em um Refúgio no Estado do Rio de Janeiro

“…No Brasil, há relatos de albinismo para as famílias Phyllostomidae: Artibeus cinereus (Oliveira e Aguiar, 2008), Artibeus planirostris (Uieda, 2000;Leal et al, 2021), Carollia perspicillata (Falcão, 2014;Rosa et al, 2017;Laurindo et al, 2021), Desmodus rotundus (Moreira et al, 1992;Uieda, 2000Uieda, , 2001Guimarães et al, 2013), Diaemus youngii (Uieda, 2015), Gardnerycteris crenulatum (Zórtea e Silva, 2017); Molossidae: Eumops glaucinus (Sodré et al, 2004), Molossus molossus (Veiga e Oliveira, 1995;Nascimento et al, 2018) e Emballonuridae: Peropteryx kappleri (Bernardi et al, 2019). Além de haver registros de piebaldismo para Phyllostomidae: Anoura geoffroyi (Reis et al, 2019), Artibeus concolor (Lucati e López-Baucells, 2016), Artibeus planirostris (Guimarães et al, 2014), A. lituratus (Souza et al, 2013), C. perspicillata (Rocha et al, 2013;Lucati e López-Baucells, 2016), Phyllostomus discolor (Treitler et al, 2013), Sturnira lilium (Biassi et al, 2017), Tonatia saurophila (Lucati e López-Baucells, 2016), Trachops cirrhosus (Bortoli et al, 2019); Molossidae: Nyctinomops laticaudatus (Geiger e Pacheco, 2006), Tadarida brasiliensis (Pacheco, 2010); e Vespertilionidae: Eptesicus taddeii (Pereira et al, 2022), Myotis levis (Miranda et al, 2010).…”