Pug bat
| Pug bat | ||||||||||||
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Drawing of pug bats |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Barbastella barbastellus | ||||||||||||
| ( Schreber , 1774) |
The pug bat ( Barbastella barbastellus ), also known as the western pug bat , belongs to the smooth-nosed bats and is easy to distinguish from other European species.
features
The size is between 4.5 and 5.8 centimeters with a wingspan of 26 to 29 centimeters and a weight of 6 to 13 grams. It got its name from its pug-like snout. Their fur and membranes are almost black, and the belly side is dark gray. In addition, pug bats have white tips on their backs, which creates a frosty impression. The ears are wide (trapezoidal) and grown together at the base. The known maximum age is around 22 years.
Diet and hunting behavior
The activity of the pug bat begins at dusk. The first individuals fly out of their roosts around 30 minutes after sunset to go hunting. The excursions usually take place in quick succession. The pug bat is assigned to the "guild" of the edge hunters ( edge space areal forager ). It usually hunts in fast, agile flight along the vegetation (e.g. edge of the forest, forest paths), but also in the area of the treetops. Here the hunt takes place, among other things, in forest-like stocks. Both the areas above and below the canopy are used. A flight speed of up to 36 km / h (10 m / s) could be documented.
The pug bat has a very narrow food spectrum, it mainly hunts nocturnal small butterflies, such as. B. bears and lichen bears (see also bear moth ). These have a tympanic organ , which makes the calls of the bats audible to the insects. However, by developing a special echolocation, the pug bat can outsmart the insects, it uses very quiet calls ("whispering calls"). In flight, the bat sends two different location sounds from the mouth and nose, whereby it is assumed that both signals have different tasks. Call type 2 is emitted from the nose pointing upwards and could serve the bat to find insects. It lies in a frequency range from 45 to 32 kHz . The downward, shorter call type 1 (36 to 28 kHz) from the mouth probably helps her to orientate herself in her surroundings. It is assumed that the development of different call types compensates for the short range of the calls. In addition to the prey animals already mentioned, mosquitoes and other insects are also eaten, provided they have a soft body, because in comparison to other bat species the pug bat has a weak jaw.
Resting places
The roosts of the pug bat are usually in forests. Hiding places behind protruding bark and in crevices of cracks in the trunk are used in particular. In contrast, tree hollows are of lesser importance. The bat species most often roosts in old oak and beech forests rich in dead wood. Habitat trees are also often used in young oak forests. The stands that are at the end of the differentiation phase usually have large amounts of weak, standing dead wood. In addition to the natural habitats, anthropogenic roosting options such as B. flat bat boxes or shutters. In addition, the pug bat uses barns as roosts in some federal states. Evidence for this is available from Bavaria and Brandenburg, among others.
A pug bats nursery usually consists of 10 to 20 individuals. The bat species uses roosts according to the fission-fusion principle; some individuals in the nursery community transmit in a second or even third habitat tree. Accordingly, not all individuals in a nursery can always be recorded during an excursion check. A large number of quarters come into use in the course of the year. In forest stands, pug bats change roosts on average every 1–2 days. In buildings, on the other hand, the neighborhood is usually populated by the nursery throughout the entire summer half-year. The pug bat is a very cold-resistant animal and only moves into its winter quarters when there is severe frost. Then she lives in the entrance areas of underground places, such as tunnels, vaults and cellars, at two to five degrees. The short hibernation takes place from November to early March.
Reproduction and birth
Pug bats reach sexual maturity in their first year. As with all native bat species, mating takes place in late summer. One or two cubs are born between June and July. The young are suckled until about six weeks after they are born.
distribution
It occurs in Europe and the Mediterranean area. In Germany, several occurrences of the pug bat from the federal states of Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Rhineland-Palatinate are known. Individual records come from the federal states of Hesse, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia and Saarland. It should not be forgotten here that the evidence often concerns individual, isolated occurrences of the bat species. In contrast, there are no known occurrences for Schleswig-Holstein.
Threat and protection
Essentially two aspects can be named which are responsible for the endangerment of the pug bat. Above all, the bat species needs old forests rich in dead wood in order to move into their quarters and to raise the young. The more intensively the forests are managed, the lower the number of roosts that are suitable for the pug bat. Another aspect is the high use of insecticides , which impair the food base, nocturnal small butterflies and their stages of development. Since the pug bat uses a very narrow range of food, the bat species can only use a few other food sources.
The pug bat is listed by the European Union in Annexes II and IV of the Habitats Directive and is therefore a species of community interest that must be strictly protected , and special protected areas must be designated for their preservation. In Germany, the pug bat is classified as a type of responsibility within the national strategy for biological diversity of the federal government. The project for the protection of the pug bat has a total volume of 5.44 million euros. In addition, the bat species is on the Red List of Endangered Species , the IUCN lists it as endangered ( vulnerable ). The pug bat was voted bat of the year 2020/2021 by BatLife Europe. One would like to point out the problems of the species and for the necessary protective efforts.
In 2020, at the nature conservation days in Radolfzell, mini batcorders , which automatically record the pug bat in a Citizen Science project. presented: From spring 2020 pug bat detectives will be working with special recording devices that will detect the presence of pug bats on the sound recordings for five days.
Philatelic
On August 1, 2019, the first day of issue, Deutsche Post AG issued a postage stamp with a face value of 155 + 55 euro cents with the image of the pug bat in the series For the Young . The design comes from the graphic artist Thomas Serres from Hattingen .
Web links
- Barbastella barbastellus onthe IUCN Red List of Threatened Species .
- Photos at www.naturlichter.de
- www.mopsfledermaus.de
- Federal Agency for Nature Conservation
Individual evidence
- ↑ Reinald Skiba: European bats . In: Westarp Sciences (Ed.): The new Brehm library . 2nd updated and expanded edition. tape 648 , 2009.
- ↑ a b c d e Christian Dietz, Andreas Kiefer: The bats of Europe . Franckh-Kosmos Verlags-GmbH & Co. KG, Stuttgart 2014.
- ↑ a b c d Christian Dietz, Otto von Helversen, Dietmar Nill: Handbook of the bats of Europe and Northwest Africa . Franckh-Kosmos Verlags-GmbH & Co. KG, Stuttgart 2007.
- ↑ Tobias Aschoff, Marc Holderied, Ulrich Marckmann, Volker Runkel: Forest measures to improve hunting habitats for bats. Final report for submission to the German Federal Environment Foundation . 2006.
- ↑ Volker Runkel: Microhabitat use of syntopic forest bats. A comparison of the structures used in anthropogenic forest biotopes in Central Europe . 2008.
- ↑ Anna-Maria Seibert, Jens C. Koblitz, Annette Denzinger, Hans-Ulrich Schnitzler: Bidirectional Echolocation in the Bat 'Barbastella barbastellus': Different Signals of Low Source Level Are Emitted Upward through the Nose and Downward through the Mouth. In: Plos One. Volume 10, No. 9, September 9, 2015, e0135590, doi: 10.1371 / journal.pone.0135590 .
- ↑ Jürgen Gebhard: Bats . Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel / Boston / Berlin 1997.
- ↑ Pug Bat (Barbastella barbastellus). In: Bavarian State Office for the Environment. Retrieved May 8, 2020 .
- ↑ Silke Halpick: Dissen is a stronghold of the pug bats. In: lr-online. November 5, 2019, accessed May 8, 2020 .
- ↑ FFH internet manual of the BfN. Barbastella barbastellus (Pug Bat). In: Federal Agency for Nature Conservation. Retrieved May 8, 2020 .
- ↑ Species in particular responsibility of Germany on the homepage of the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, accessed on June 3, 2016
- ↑ project
- ^ Bat Species of the Year. In: BatLife Europe. Retrieved May 8, 2020 .
- ↑ Pug Bat
- ↑ Nature Conservation Days 2020