Little rabbit's mouth
| Little rabbit's mouth | ||||||||||||
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Little hare's mouth ( Noctilio albiventris ) |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Noctilio albiventris | ||||||||||||
| Desmarest , 1818 |
The little hare's mouth ( Noctilio albiventris ) is a bat species from the family of the hare's mouth , which is native to Central and South America.
description
The little hare's mouth is, as the name suggests, the smaller of the two types of hare's mouths . The head-body length is 65–68 mm, the tail length 13–16 mm, the forearm is shorter than 70 mm and the wingspan is 285–380 mm. Characteristic are the pronounced drooping cheeks, which give the bat a bulldog-like appearance. The cheeks form a kind of pocket in the mouth due to the enlarged cheek muscle ( musculus buccinator ), which is also present in the big hare's mouth ( Noctilio leporinus ). The ears are narrow and pointed, the tragus has finger-like outgrowths. The feet are large and sturdy, but not as extremely enlarged as those of the Big Hare's Mouth. The calcar is long and bone-like. The fur is extremely short, with color varying between individuals and within the range. The animals are reddish-light brown to dark brown, with a yellowish-brown to whitish underside. In contrast to the big hare's mouth, the light stripe on the back is less pronounced and is even absent in many animals.
Way of life
The little hare's mouth is nocturnal like most other bats . Despite the similar morphology, it feeds mainly on insects, unlike the big hare's mouth, which catches fish. The long feet and the pronounced tail fly skin serve as a kind of net for the little rabbit's mouth with which it collects insects from the surface of the water. Here can diving beetles (Dytiscidae) up to 22% of the food make. Fish remains are also occasionally found in the droppings of this species. It is believed that the big rabbit's fish-eating way of life evolved from hunting for insects on the surface of the water. In fact, molecular 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.
The Little Hare's Mouth is particularly active in the first hour after sunset and one hour after midnight and therefore hardly overlaps the main activity time of the Big Hare's Mouth. When flying, the animals emit up to 200 echolocation calls per second in the range between 70 and 40 kHz, which are not audible to the human ear. The calls reach a volume of over 137 dB, which roughly corresponds to that of a jet aircraft at a distance of 100 m. Little rabbits often hunt in groups and can also use information that they gain from the echolocation calls of their conspecifics. Since the prey of the little rabbits often includes swarming insects, the success of another individual's prey promises that even more insects will be found at the spot. Experiments show that the calls an animal utters just before it catches a prey actually attract other bats. Echolocation calls are also likely to contain an individual signature that the animals can use to recognize each other. During the day, the little rabbit's mouth hangs in groups in hollow trees and buildings. Little is known about social behavior.
Reproduction
The mating of the little rabbit's mouth takes place in November and December. The egg cell is fertilized in the fallopian tube , where the blastocyst continues to develop in the uterine lining ( endometrium ) before implantation ( nidation ) . From April to May, the females give birth to a single young. The newborns are hairless but are born with their eyes open. The feet are already as big as the adult animals. After 14 to 23 days the first hairiness appears and after 33 to 36 days the coat is fully developed. The boys start their first flight attempts at the age of 31 to 34 days and are able to fly at 35 to 44 days. The young animals are suckled by their mother for a maximum of 90 days and reach full size at 61 to 91 days.
The males have flaps of skin around the scrotum , which can be everted like fingers and give off a garlic-like odor during the mating season, which probably plays a role in courtship .
distribution and habitat
The little hare's mouth occurs from southern Mexico to northern Argentina . The species is classified by the IUCN as 
(= least concern - not endangered).
literature
- CS Hood & J. Pitocchelli Noctilio albiventris . In: Mammalian Species , No. 197, pp. 1-5
swell
- ↑ 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
- ↑ A. Surlykke, EKV Kalko (2008) Echolocating bats cry out lour to detect their prey. Plos One, doi : 10.1371 / journal.pone.0002036 .
- ↑ DKN Dechmann, SL Heucke, L. Giuggioli, K. Safi, CC Voigt, M. Wikelski (2009) Experimental evidence for group hunting via eavesdropping in echolocating bats. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 276, pp. 2721-2728
- ↑ SL Voigt-Heucke, M. Taborsky, DKN Dechmann (2010) A dual function of echolocation: bats use echolocation calls to identify familiar and unfamiliar individuals. Animal Behavior 80, pp. 59-67
- ^ PE Brown, TW Brown, AD Grinnell (1983) Echolocation, development, and vocal communication in the lesser bulldog bat, Noctilio albiventris , Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 13, pp. 287-298
- ↑ Noctilio albiventris on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species .
