Little free-tailed bat

The little free-tailed bat (Chaerephon pumilus) is a species of the genus Chaerephon in the family Molossidae. It is widely distributed across Africa and islands around the continent.

Little free-tailed bat

Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Chiroptera
Family: Molossidae
Genus: Chaerephon
Species:
C. pumilus
Binomial name
Chaerephon pumilus
(Cretzschmar, 1826)

Description

The little free-tailed bat is one of the smallest species in the genus Chaerephon, and a total body length is measured from 54 to 102 mm.[2][3] The ventral fur has lighter color than the dorsal fur, which is short and blackish-brown.[4] Pale or white hairs are observed on the ventral surface where wings are connected to flanks, and both white-winged (north-eastern African species) and dark-winged (southern African species) types have been found.[2][3][5][6] This species has round ears that are large for its head size.[4] The small tragus of its ear, which is asymmetrically bilobed at the end, is covered by the large antitragus.[3] A distinguishable forehead tuft is observed in males and it makes their outline recognizable during flight.[4] This species shows great morphological variations in wing and pelage colors resulted in different taxonomic designations depending on its distributional ranges.[7] To illustrate, the little free-tailed bat population found in Amani, Tanzania, has a longer forearm length on average than populations in southern Africa and Ghana and a higher wing loading than populations in South Africa.[8]

Ecology

Distribution and habitat

Little free-tailed bats occur across southern parts of the Arabian Peninsula, sub-Saharan Africa, and islands of the west Africa and east shores of Africa, such as Sno Tomé, Bioko, Zanzibar, Pemba, the Comoros, the Seychelles, and Madagascar.[4][9][10] Habitats of little free-tailed bats are various from rainforest regions in the south to semiarid areas in the north, which are typically open foraging regions.[5] These bats are found in savannas of Sudan, Guinea, and Zambia, in the Cape Macchia Zone, and more arid countries in the north.[4] Also, they tend to prefer low veld areas in Zimbabwe, but they are never found on the plateau higher than 1,000 meter altitude.[3]

Diet

The little free-tailed bat is insectivorous and feeds on a wide range of small insects. Coleoptera (beetles), Hemiptera (true bugs) and Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies) are major prey for this species.[11] During both summer and winter seasons, they mainly prey on Hemiptera and Lepidoptera, while Diptera (flies) notably contributes to the diet only in the winter and Coleoptera is common only in the summer.[11] However, depending on distributional ranges, types of prey can be varied considerably. For instance, a population found in Amani, Tanzania, mainly feeds on Blattodea (cockroaches) with Hemiptera as the only other order to account for more than 10% of the diet.[8] In South Africa, even though prey is equally available during both dry and rainy seasons, mean size of prey tends to increase in the rainy season.[12]

Behavior

Flight and echolocation

Little free-tailed bats can fly fast in open areas where they typically inhabit.[4] They have strong, elastic, and leathery flight membrane with high aspect ratio (wing length to width) of long and narrow wings, which are suited for fast and long distance flight but low maneuverability.[4][13] In terms of their low maneuverability, while other African species can pass between two objects that are 11 cm apart, the minimum distance between two objects that little free-tailed bats can fly is 44 cm.[13] Even though its ears are relatively large for its head size, they can lie down on its head to reduce air resistance during flight.[4] As a nocturnal species, little free-tailed bats primarily rely on echolocation to detect their prey and environment.[4] Since higher frequency of echolocation call attenuates with distance faster than low frequency, this species uses low frequency calls with high intensity, which last longer and thus are suitable for prey detection with long-range in open areas.[4][14]

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References
  1. Mickleburgh, S.; Hutson, A.M.; Racey, P.A.; Ravino, J.; Bergmans, W.; Cotterill, F.P.D.; Gerlach, J. (2019). "Chaerephon pumilus". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2019: e.T67362271A22018113.
  2. Kingdon, J (1974). East African mammals, an atlas of evolution in Africa. London: Academic Press. p. 341.
  3. Smithers, R. H. N. (1983). The mammals of the southern African subregion. Pretoria: University of Pretoria Press. p. 736.
  4. Bouchard, S. (1998). Mammalian Species Chaerephon pumilus. the American Society of Mammalogists, 574: 1-6.
  5. Happold, D. C. D. (1987). The mammals of Nigeria. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 402.
  6. Jacobs, D. S., Eick, G. N., Richardson E. J., and Taylor P. J. (2004). Genetic similarity amongst phenotypically diverse little free-tailed bats, Chaerephon pumilus. Acta Chiropterologica, 6(1): 13-21.
  7. Goodman S. M. and Ratrimomanarivo F. H. (2007). The taxonomic status of Chaerephon pumilus from the western Seychelles: resurrection of the name C. pusillus for an endemic species. Acta Chiropterologica, 9(2): 391–399.
  8. Aspetsberger, F., Brandsen, D., and Jacobs, D. S. (2003). Geographical variation in the morphology, echolocation and diet of the little free-tailed bat, Chaerophon pumilus (Molossidae).African Zoology, 38: 245–254.
  9. Juste, B. J. and Ibánez, C. (1994). Contribution to the knowledge of bat fauna of Bioko Island, Equatorial Guinea (Central Africa). Zeitschriftfür Säugetierkunde, 59: 274–281.
  10. Simmons, N. B. (2005). Order Chiroptera in Mammal species of the World: a taxonomic and geographical reference, 3rd Ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University. p. 2142.
  11. Andrianaivoarivelo, A. R., Ranaivoson, N., Racey, P. A., and Jenkins, R. K. B. (2006). The diet of three synanthropic bats (Chiroptera: Molossidae) from eastern Madagascar. Acta Chiropterologica, 8(2):439-444.
  12. Ellis, S. E. (1995). Seasonal responses of South African bats to insect densities and lights. M.S. thesis. .North York University, North York, Canada: York University. p. 47.
  13. Aldridge, H. D. J. N., and Rautenbach, I. L. (1987). Morphology, echolocation and resource partitioning in insectivorous bats. Journal of Animal Ecology, 56: 763-778.
  14. Lawrence, B. D. and Simmons, J. A. (1982). Measurements of atmospheric attenuation at ultrasonic frequencies and the significance for echolocation by bats. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 71: 585-590.
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