Big mouth of a rabbit

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Big mouth of a rabbit
Captive Noctilio leporinus.jpg

Great hare's mouth ( Noctilio leporinus )

Systematics
Superordinate : Laurasiatheria
Order : Bats (chiroptera)
Superfamily : Hare's mouths (Noctilionoidea)
Family : Rabbit mouths (Noctilionidae)
Genre : Mouths of rabbits ( Noctilio )
Type : Big mouth of a rabbit
Scientific name
Noctilio leporinus
( Linnaeus , 1758)

The big mouth of the hare ( Noctilio leporinus ) is a bat species from the family of the hare's mouth , which is native to Central and South America.

description

As the name suggests, the big hare's mouth is the larger of the two types of hare's mouths . The total length is 119–127 mm, the forearm length 81.6–88.1 mm, with the males being larger than the females. The cheeks form a kind of pocket in the mouth due to the enlarged cheek muscle ( musculus buccinator ), which is also present in the little rabbit's mouth ( Noctilio albiventris ). The ears are narrow and pointed, the tragus has finger-like outgrowths. The feet are greatly enlarged (32–34 mm), the calcar is long and bone-like, and the claws are long and robust. The fur is extremely short, with the color varying from pale orange to brown to gray. A clear, light stripe runs from the head over the back. The peritoneum is usually whitish to light orange.

Way of life

Like most other bats, the big hare's mouth is nocturnal. The main activity time differs from that of the little rabbit's mouth, which has two activity periods separated by a long break. The big hare's mouth, however, is active throughout the night, which enables the two sister species to coexist by avoiding food competition.

Diet

The big hare's mouth feeds primarily on fish . The greatly elongated feet serve as a kind of rake with which the bat combs the water surface of lakes, large rivers and bays in flight. If the prey is close enough to the surface of the water, the big hare's mouth can also detect it with the help of echolocation calls and fish it out of the water in a targeted manner. Caught fish are briefly chewed and placed in the cheek pouch. In addition to fish, the big hare's mouth also eats insects, especially during the rainy season, which it picks up from the surface of the water. Similar behavior was found in other bat species such as the sister species, the lesser hare's mouth, and Myotis vivesi . It is believed that the fish-eating way of life of the big hare's mouth developed from hunting for insects on the surface of the water. In fact, molecular genetic analyzes show that the big hare's mouth evolved from a species that looked similar to the little hare's mouth around 0.28-0.7 million years ago.

Echolocation

The big hare's mouth echolocation calls move between 60 and 50 kHz and are therefore inaudible to the human ear. During the hunt, up to 200 echolocation calls are emitted per second, each lasting 8 ms. The calls reach a volume of over 137 dB, which roughly corresponds to that of a jet aircraft at a distance of 100 m.

Social structure

During the day, large mouths of rabbits hang in colonies of usually several hundred animals, mostly in hollow trees such as the kapok tree ( Ceiba pentandra ), the red mangrove ( Rhizophora mangle ) and the balata tree ( Manilkara bidentata ). The only bat species that was found in such tree hollows along with the big hare's mouth is the common vampire ( Desmodus rotundus ). Near the coast, the big hare's mouth also uses surf caves, in which other bat species occasionally live, such as Mormoops megalophylla , Glossophaga soricina , the spectacle-shaped nose ( Carollia perspicillata ) and the common vampire. Big hare's mouth females stay together in a group, marking each other with a secretion by rubbing their heads under the wings of other females. Females from a colony have also been observed to hunt together. Males usually hang separately from the females, with the exception of territorial males, which usually spend more than two reproductive seasons with the females. The big hare's mouth thus seems to have a polygynous social structure.

Reproduction

Little is known about the breeding of the great hare's mouth. The females give birth to a single young each year. Pregnant females were observed between December and April, and July and August, and births between February and October. Mating takes place in autumn and winter. The males have pocket-like flaps of skin around the scrotum , which give off a musky odor, which probably plays a role in courtship .

distribution and habitat

The big mouth of the rabbit occurs from Mexico to the north of Argentina , as well as on the Greater and Lesser Antilles . The species is classified as harmless by the IUCN .

literature

  • CS Hood & J. Knox Jones Jr .: Noctilio leporinus . In: Mammalian Species , No. 2016, pp. 1-7

swell

  1. N. Lewis Oritt, RA Van Den Bussche, RJ Baker (2001): Molecular evidence continues he evolution of piscivory in Noctilio (Chiroptera: Noctilionidae). Journal of Mammalogy 82, pp. 748-759
  2. A. Surlykke, EKV Kalko (2008): echolocating bats cry out lour to detect Their prey. Plos One, doi : 10.1371 / journal.pone.0002036 .
  3. ^ AP Brooke (2010): Social Organization and Foraging Behavior of the Fishing Bat, Noctilio leporinus (Chiroptera: Noctilionidae). Ethology 103, pp. 421-436
  4. Noctilio leporinus in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species .

Web links

Commons : Noctilio leporinus  - collection of images, videos and audio files