The Bat Fauna of Meghalaya, Northeast India: Diversity and Conservation

First record of Disk-footed bat Eudiscopus denticulus (Osgood, 1932) (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) from India with notes on its ecology and genetics

“…Despite the relatively small geographic area of the state of Meghalaya, this discovery of a new genus in the country both confi rm that this region is exceptionally rich in Chiropteran diversity, and certainly is still underexplored (Ruedi et al, 2012). With the present addition of E. denticulus from Meghalaya, the reported bat diversity of the state has increased to 66 species and that of India to 130 species (Saikia, 2018;Saikia et al, 2018;Chakravarty et al, 2020;Ruedi et al, 2021).…”

Taxonomic and ecological notes on some poorly known bats (Mammalia: Chiroptera) from Meghalaya, India

“…The bat fauna of the northeastern Indian state of Meghalaya is astonishingly diverse with well over half of the 127 bat species reported from India (Saikia 2018;Saikia et al 2018). While some distribution information on the bat species of Meghalaya is available (Ruedi et al 2012b;Saikia et al 2018), taxonomic and ecological information is scant (Sinha 1999a).…”

“…). The Meghalaya subtropical forest ecoregion covering the state of Meghalaya and the adjacent areas of Assam is recognized as one of the most species-diverse area in the Indomalayan region (Wikramanayake et al 2002) with more than 165 species of mammals (Rodgers & Panwar 1988;Das et al 1995;Saikia et al 2018); and a total of 162 species of mammals in Meghalaya State (Lyngdoh et al 2019). Meghalaya harbours numerous caves of which nearly a thousand have been scientifically explored and mapped during the "Caving in the Abode of the Clouds" project (Prokop & Arbenz 2015).…”

“…Thus, the state with abundant caves especially in the limestone belt offers plentiful roosting opportunities for cave roosting bats. Indeed, 65 species of bats have been recorded so far from the state, including several recent discoveries resulting from explorations conducted during the above-mentioned caving project (Ruedi et al 2012a,b;Saikia et al 2017Saikia et al , 2018Thong et al 2018). Some older records from the state pertain to exceptionally rare species, such as Eptesicus tatei or E. pachyotis which have hardly been reported again in India since their discovery (Bates & Harrison 1997;Mandal et al 2000), and several additions to the list emerged from a critical re-examination of vouchered specimens of apparently widespread taxa, such as those in the Murina cyclotis group (Ruedi et al 2012a).…”

“…Some older records from the state pertain to exceptionally rare species, such as Eptesicus tatei or E. pachyotis which have hardly been reported again in India since their discovery (Bates & Harrison 1997;Mandal et al 2000), and several additions to the list emerged from a critical re-examination of vouchered specimens of apparently widespread taxa, such as those in the Murina cyclotis group (Ruedi et al 2012a). Other additions such as Tylonycteris fulvida or T. malayana (Tu et al 2017), or Hypsugo joffrei (Saikia et al 2017) emerged from a recent update of their former taxonomic assignation, but a number of other species were only mentioned in diverse reports, without proper taxonomic or biometric description (Ruedi et al 2012b;Saikia 2018;Saikia et al 2018). This underscores the need for further data in a number of poorly known bats of Meghalaya with scant information on taxonomy, distribution and ecology.…”