















Seventeen Species of Bats Recorded from
Barro Colorado Island, Panama Canal Zone

BY

E. RAYMOND HALL and WILLIAM B. JACKSON


University of Kansas Publications

Museum of Natural History

Volume 5, No. 37, pp. 641-646

December 1, 1953


University of Kansas

LAWRENCE

1953

UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS PUBLICATIONS, MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

Editors: E. Raymond Hall, Chairman, A. Byron Leonard,
Robert W. Wilson

Volume 5, No. 37, pp. 641-646
December 1, 1953


UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
Lawrence, Kansas


PRINTED BY
FERD VOILAND, JR., STATE PRINTER
TOPEKA, KANSAS
1953


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Seventeen Species of Bats Recorded from Barro Colorado Island, Panama
Canal Zone

By

E. RAYMOND HALL and WILLIAM B. JACKSON


Our aim is to bring up to date the list of kinds of bats actually known
from Barro Colorado Island, Panamá. In 1952 Samuel T. Dickenson,
Marguerite Schultz, George P. Young, and E. Raymond Hall spent the first
17 days of April (except Mrs. Schultz who left on April 8) on Barro
Colorado Island. On eight evenings a silk net, 30 feet long and 7 feet
high with a 3/4-inch mesh, was stretched in an open place to intercept
bats. On the first five nights it was stretched in the laboratory
clearing. On April 6 the net was erected in the forest across the
Barbara Lathrop Trail 25 feet past its entrance; on the 7th and 8th the
net was placed across the Snyder-Molino Trail at the Termite Cemetery,
150 yards southwest of the new (built in 1952) laboratory.

William B. Jackson was on the island from January 30 to June 6, 1952, as
a member of a group from the American Museum of Natural History. On May
4 he set the bat net across Allee Creek at the beginning of the Barbara
Lathrop Trail, and from May 5 to 27 he set the net in the Termite
Cemetery where it was mounted between two small trees with its lower
edge approximately 5 feet above the ground. Unless otherwise stated,
specimens were caught in this net.

On Barro Colorado Island one aim is to preserve the biota and natural
conditions with as little interference from man as possible.
Consequently most of the bats captured were released after being
wing-banded by Jackson with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service bat bands;
but an attempt was made, with the permission of Mr. James Zetek,
Resident Custodian of the Canal Zone Biological Area administered
through the Smithsonian Institution, to save one or a few specimens of
each species for positive identification. Catalogue numbers are of the
University of Kansas, Museum of Natural History, unless otherwise
indicated. We are obliged to Mr. Colin C. Sanborn and Mr. Robert J.
Russell for checking our identifications of the specimens. Assistance
with field work is acknowledged from the Kansas University Endowment
Association, the United States Navy, Office of Naval Research, through
contract No. NR-161-791, and Mr. James Zetek.

Six species of bats were recorded from Barro Colorado Island by
Professor Robert K. Enders in his "Mammalian Life Histories from Barro
Colorado Island, Panamá" (Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., at Harvard College,
78: 383-502, 5 pls., October, 1935). With his list as a starting place
we can offer a revised list as follows:

Saccopteryx bilineata (Temminck).--Nos. 45061, 45062, 45097, and 402 and
404 of Jackson. Nonpregnant female No. 45061 captured on April 3 weighed
7.0 grams; No. 45062 captured on April 4 contained one embryo 22 mm.
long. It was common to see several bats of this species, not in a
cluster but with a few inches of space between any one bat and its
neighbors, on the vertical screens that covered the airways beneath the
eaves of the buildings. A colony was established in Zetek House (a
trail-end house on the western side of the Island), and several
individuals often were seen in the Tower House. As many as 50
individuals could be found at the Van Tyne Big Tree (_Bombacopsis
Fendleri_) where they hung singly in the shaded inter-buttress spaces
and on the exposed trunk sometimes up to a height of 100 feet.
Occasionally several individuals would be seen in inter-buttress spaces
of large trees on other parts of the Island. These bats were more alert
during the daylight hours than were most other kinds of bats and could
be approached and captured only with considerable difficulty. From the
various colonies 13 females and 3 males were banded.

Noctilio leporinus mexicanus Goldman.--Seen in Wheeler Estuary by Enders
(_op. cit._:416) who uses the subspecific name _N. l. leporinus_.
Goodwin (Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., 79:121, May 29, 1942) later used
the subspecific name _N. l. mexicanus_ for this species in Panamá.

Micronycteris megalotis microtis Miller.--Enders (_op. cit._:417)
obtained specimens of this species from the underside of a fallen log
and in a hollow tree at marker No. 23 on the Pearson Trail.

Phyllostomus discolor discolor Wagner.--Taken from a hollow tree by
Enders (_op. cit._:417).

Glossophaga soricina leachii (Gray).--No. 45073, April 5.

Carollia perspicillata azteca Saussure.--No. 400 of Jackson taken at
Allee Creek and Barbara Lathrop Trail and No. 52456 (410 of Jackson) at
Termite Cemetery. These two nonpregnant females weighed 14.7 and 17.7
grams, respectively. Two ([Male] and [Female]), caught at Termite
Cemetery were banded and released.

Carollia castanea H. Allen.--Males, 45080 and 45081, weighed 11.8 and
11.5 grams; at 9:30 P.M., on April 6, on Barbara Lathrop Trail.

Vampyrops helleri Peters.--Male, No. 45095, in net on April 4; weighed
15 grams.

Vampyressa minuta Miller.--Lactating female, No. 45094, weighed 10.0
grams. At 10:30 A.M. at the outer end of the Armour Trail, Young and
Hall had barely paused to listen to animal sounds when they saw this bat
alight on a breast-high twig of a bush beneath large trees in the gloom
of the forest. Possibly it had been disturbed when the zoologists a few
seconds before had pushed aside bushes that partly obstructed the trail.

Vampyressa nymphaea Thomas.--Nonpregnant female No. 52455 (403 of
Jackson) weighed 10.3 grams and was taken at the Termite Cemetery on May
8. So far as we know, this specimen provides the first record of
occurrence in North America of this species which previously had been
recorded only from South America.

Chiroderma isthmica Miller.--Male No. 45096, April 2; weighed 13.7
grams.

Vampyrodes major G.M. Allen.--Male No. 45085, weighed 33 grams. It and
the one _Chiroderma isthmica_ on the morning of April 2 constituted the
total catch found in the net stretched in the open clearing between two
cabins.

Artibeus lituratus palmarum J.A. Allen and Chapman.--Nonpregnant female
No. 45086 taken on evening of April 7, weighed 68.0 grams. No. 401 of
Jackson taken on May 6 weighed 53.5 grams and contained one embryo 12
mm. long; his No. 409 taken on May 10 weighed 53.7 grams and contained
one embryo 15 mm. long.

Enders (_op. cit._:418) took specimens of _Artibeus jamaicensis
jamaicensis_ in Panamá and possibly on Barro Colorado Island; he is not
specific as to locality.

Artibeus cinereus watsoni Thomas.--Male No. 45087 on April 8; weight
13.6 grams. Ingles (Jour. Mamm., 34:267, May, 1953) records the finding
of as many as three of these bats on the Island in a "tent" that the
bats had made of a frond of the palm, _Geonoma decurrens_.

Thyroptera tricolor albigula G.M. Allen.--On May 10 along the
Snyder-Molino Trail 50 meters from its beginning Dr. E.R. Dunn found in
a curled _Heliaconia_ leaf a group of four bats of this species. A
lactating female (No. 405 of Jackson), a young male (No. 406 of
Jackson) attached to its mother's teat, and a male (No. 407 of Jackson,
now 52457 K.U.) weighed, respectively, 4.8, 2.2, and 4.0 grams. The
young one remained attached to the mother when she flew about the
laboratory. The fourth specimen, a male, was banded and released. These
bats with the aid of suction cups on their wrists and ankles hung head
up in the rolled leaf and on places in the laboratory on which they
alighted. This species was previously recorded (see Enders, _op.
cit._:421) from Barro Colorado Island, on the basis of other specimens
also captured by Professor Dunn.

Myotis nigricans nigricans (Schinz).--Nos. 45089-45091 and No. 408 of
Jackson. Nos. 45090 and 45091 were plucked from under the eaves of
buildings, but No. 45089 was caught in the net on the evening of April
5. Jackson found this species to roost between the corrugations of the
metal roof and the underlying wooden supports. He banded 14 individuals,
most of which were pulled with forceps from their resting places in the
old laboratory or the kitchen. All were males. Five were recaptured from
one to 13 days after banding, and two were found in the places from
which they originally had been plucked 13 days previously. Enders (_op.
cit._:421) found this species to be abundant about the laboratory where
it spent the day hanging under the eaves.

Molossus coibensis J.A. Allen.--Males Nos. 45092 and 45093 weighed 13.9
and 10.0 grams. They were taken in the clearing on April 3 and 5. Enders
(_op. cit._:421) found this bat under the eaves of the laboratory along
with _Myotis nigricans_.

      *      *      *      *      *

On April 19, 1952, Dr. Harold Trapido kindly took Young, Dickenson,
Hall, and Dr. and Mrs. E.R. Dunn to the Experimental Botanical Gardens
at Summit in the Canal Zone where Nos. 45082-45084 of _Uroderma
bilobatum_ Peters were saved. On the same date Doctor Trapido took the
five of us also to Chilibrillo Cave in Panamá 10 miles north of Pedro
Miguel where specimens were saved as follows: _Saccopteryx bilineata_
(Temminck), 45059 and 45060; _Phyllostomus hastatus panamensis_ J.A.
Allen, 45063-45072; _Lonchophylla robusta_ Miller, 45074-45075;
_Carollia perspicillata azteca_ Saussure, 45076-45079; _Natalus
mexicanus saturabus_ Dalquest and Hall, 45088.

_Transmitted July 20, 1953._

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