Christmas Island Pipebat

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Christmas Island Pipebat
Systematics
Superfamily : Smooth-nosed (Vespertilionoidea)
Family : Smooth-nosed (Vespertilionidae)
Subfamily : True smooth-nosed (Vespertilioninae)
Tribe : Pipistrellini
Genre : Pipistrelle bats ( Pipistrellus )
Type : Christmas Island Pipebat
Scientific name
Pipistrellus murrayi
Andrews , 1900

The Christmas Island Zwergfledermaus ( Pipistrellus murrayi ) is an extinct species of bats of the genus dwarf bats ( Pipistrellus ). It was endemic to Christmas Island, Australia . The scientific species name was chosen in honor of the British oceanographer John Murray (1841-1914).

features

The Christmas Island pipistrelle reached a head-trunk length of 34 to 40 mm, a tail length of 29 to 31 mm, an ear length of 8.5 to 11 mm, a hind foot length of 6 to 8 mm, a forearm length of 29.8 to 32.6 mm and a weight of 2.6 to 4.6 g. The soft fur on the back was dark brown with yellowish hair tips. The peritoneum was a little lighter.

Way of life

The Christmas Island pipistrelle was usually nocturnal and crepuscular, but there have also been observations of individuals flying around in the afternoon. It mainly fed on small insects, including moths, beetles, ants and wasps, which it captured in flight. The sleeping places were under the loose bark, especially of dead trees, in small hollows and cracks in tree trunks and branches, or in the dense foliage of palm trees , epiphytes or screw trees . At the end of December a young animal was born and suckled for about four weeks. At the time of litter, the females formed common nursery colonies with more than 50 individuals. Christmas Island Pipebats had their roosts in the rainforest and looked for food in various habitat types, presumably preferring forest edges and open terrain.

status

When it was discovered in 1888, the Christmas Island pipebat was still common and widespread. The species was still common at the first official census in the mid-1980s. From 1994, however, the population began to decline rapidly, which was put at over 80 percent over the next twelve years. The distribution area of ​​the species once found on the entire Christmas Island was limited to the extreme west from 2006 onwards. When the population was re-assessed in January 2009, fewer than 20 specimens were estimated based on a colony of four adult females and possibly undiscovered roosts. The behavior of the females suggested that they had young. Three years earlier there were 54 specimens in the same colony. In the summer of 2009 the attempt to capture some animals for a conservation breeding program had failed. On August 26, 2009, the last echolocation of a specimen was recorded that could not be found a day later. Subsequent searches for supposedly surviving specimens also remained fruitless. In May 2012, the Christmas Island Pipebat was officially declared extinct by the Australian government. The IUCN followed in September 2017 . The reasons for the extinction of the species are still unclear. Presumably several factors played a role simultaneously, including threats from the hooded wolf tooth snake , from the yellow spinner ant , from rats and from the giant centipede Scolopendra morsitans .

Systematics

The Christmas Island pipistrelle was at times considered a subspecies of the white-winged bat ( Pipistrellus tenuis ). In 2009, however, a genetic study confirmed that Pipistrellus murrayi represents an independent species.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ KM Helgen, KN Armstrong, J. Guzinski, RA How, SC Donnellan: Taxonomic status of the Christmas Island pipistrelle, Pipistrellis murrayi Andrews, 1900, as assessed by morphometric and molecular investigations of Indo-Australian Pipistrellus. Commonwealth Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, Canberra, 2009.

literature

  • Martin Schulz, Linda F. Lumsden : National Recovery Plan for the Christmas Island Pipistrelle Pipistrellus murrayi Department of the Environment and Heritage, 2004, ISBN 0-642-55012-3
  • Steve van Dyck, Ronald Strahan (Eds.): The Mammals of Australia. 3. Edition. 2008, New Holland Press, ISBN 978-1-877069-25-3 , pp. 547-549.
  • Tara G. Martin, Simon Nally, Andrew A. Burbidge, Sophie Arnall, Stephen T. Garnett, Matt W. Hayward, Linda F. Lumsden, Peter Menkhorst, Eve McDonald-Madden, Hugh P. Possingham: Acting fast helps avoid extinction. In: Conservation Letters. 2012.
  • Andrew Burbidge , John Woinarski , Peter Harrison: The Action Plan for Australian Mammals 2012. Csiro Publishing, 2014, ISBN 978-0-643-10873-8 .
  • John Woinarski: A Bat's End: The Christmas Island Pipistrelle and Modern Extinction in Australia Csiro Publishing, 2018, ISBN 978-1-486-30863-7 .

Web links