Variation in ectoparasite load in the Mehely’s horseshoe bat, Rhinolophus mehelyi (Chiroptera: Rhinolophidae) in a nursery colony in western Iran

Abstract

We studied variation of ectoparasite load in a free ranging populations of Mehely's horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus mehelyi) on five successive occasions in a nursery roost in western Iran. In total, 87 Rhinolophus mehelyi were captured. The patterns of abundance differed greatly among parasite species but total parasite load was markedly higher in pregnant females in spring and early summer and lower in solitary males. On average, 90% of bats were infested by Eyndhovenia sp. with a mean intensity of 13.79 individuals per bat. Penicillidia sp. and one species from Streblidae were found in 66.7% and 11.49% of bats with parasite load of 2.31 and 1.8 parasite per bat, respectively. Using ratio of forearm length to body mass as an indication of bat health the correlation coefficient between parasite load and the health indicator was 0.002 for males and 0.06 for females indicating that parasite load has no apparent impact on bat's health.

Ectoparasite performance when feeding on reproducing mammalian females: an unexpected decrease when on pregnant hosts

“…Scott and Kaufmann, 1991;Morales et al, 2002;Sharifi et al, 2013), although the opposite has been found in other studies (e.g. Osorio et al, 2008).…”

Analysis of COI gene, prevalence, and intensity of the bat fly Cyclopodia greeffi on roosting straw-coloured fruit bat Eidolon helvum in Southwest Nigeria

“…The bat fly was identified by external morphological features with a dissecting microscope and photomicroscope (MicroCap V3.0) using ( Theodor, 1957 , 1959 ) as identification guides. The ectoparasite abundance (number of ectoparasite per fruit bat), ectoparasite prevalence (percentage of infested fruit bat), and mean ectoparasite intensity (mean number of ectoparasite per infested bat) were determined ( Sharifi et al, 2013 ).…”

Comparative phylogeography of two bat species and their mites in Iran shows impact of host sociality and vagility on population structure

“…Spinturnix psi is a highly host-specific species, exhibiting marked morphological, physiological, and behavioral adaptations to M. schreibersii (Estrada-Peña et al, 1991;Lourenço & Palmeirim, 2007) and M. pallidus. Most studies on ectoparasites of bats in Iran are restricted to morphological (Malek-Hosseini & Zamani, 2017;Vatandoost et al, 2010) and ecological (Sharifi et al, 2008(Sharifi et al, , 2013 studies, and there is no specific and comprehensive study about the genetic association between the bats and their ectoparasites.…”