Trachops cirrhosus (Spix, 1823)

Velazco, Paúl M., Voss, Robert S., Fleck, David W. & Simmons, Nancy B., 2021, Mammalian Diversity And Matses Ethnomammalogy In Amazonian Peru Part 4: Bats, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2021 (451), pp. 1-201 : 83-85

Trachops cirrhosus (Spix, 1823)

Figure 20B , 21

VOUCHER MATERIAL (TOTAL = 19): Jenaro Herrera (AMNH 278476; CEBIOMAS 112; MUSM 5533), Nuevo San Juan (AMNH 272813, 272820, 272821, 273176; MUSM 13277–13280, 15286, 15287), Orosa (AMNH 74026), Quebrada Esperanza (FMNH 89031–89035); see table 36 for measurements.

UNVOUCHERED OBSERVATIONS: During the Yavarí Rapid Biological Inventory, Trachops cirrhosus was captured at Quebrada Buenavista (one individual) and Quebrada Curacinha (two individuals; Escobedo, 2003). An unspecified number of individuals of Trachops cirrhosus were also captured at Anguila and Wiswincho during the Tapiche-Blanco Rapid Biological Inventory (Escobedo-Torres, 2015). Five individuals were captured at Frog Valley on 17 February 2019, and another 23 individuals were captured at the same locality on 20 February 2019.

IDENTIFICATION: Trachops is a widespread monotypic genus distributed from southern Mexico to southeastern Brazil (Cramer et al., 2001; Williams and Genoways, 2008; Reid, 2009).

Trachops cirrhosus is easily distinguished from other phyllostomines by having many fleshy elongated warts on the chin and lips, finely serrated noseleaf margins, a tail that extends to the middle of the uropatagium, a calcar with the same length as the foot, and two pairs of lower incisors (Williams and Genoways, 2008; Reid, 2009; López-Baucells et al., 2018). Descriptions and measurements of T. cirrhosus were provided by Ruschi (1953), Burt and Stirton (1961), Goodwin and Greenhall (1961), Husson (1962, 1978), Starrett and Casebeer (1968), Swanepoel and Genoways (1979), Willig (1983), Brosset and Charles-Dominique (1990), Alvarez-Castañeda and Alvarez (1991), Simmons and Voss (1998), Cramer et al. (2001), Lim et al. (2005), and Feijó and Nunes (2010). Three subspecies are currently recognized: T. c. cirrhosus ( Costa Rica southeastward to northern Bolivia and central Brazil), T. c. coffini (southern Mexico to Nicaragua), and T. c. ehrhardti (southern Brazil) (Cramer et al., 2001; Williams and Genoways, 2008). It is pos- sible that some or all of these taxa represent distinct species (Ditchfield, 2000; Clare, 2011) but we recommend continued treatment of them as conspecific pending completion of a thorough revision of the genus. Regardless, if subspecies are recognized, material from our study area represents the nominotypical subspecies.

Ascorra et al. (1993) and Fleck et al. (2002) correctly identified their specimens from Jenaro Herrera and Nuevo San Juan, respectively, as Trachops cirrhosus . The voucher material we examined from the Yavarí-Ucayali interfluve conforms to previous qualitative and morphometric descriptions of the species.

REMARKS: All 15 recorded nocturnal captures of Trachops cirrhosus from our region were made in ground-level mistnets: of these, 8 were in primary forest, 1 was in secondary vegetation, 2 were in a swampy mineral lick (collpa), and 4 were in a palm swamp (aguajal). We found three roosting groups of Trachops cirrhosus near Nuevo San Juan. The first group, encountered on 25 October 1999, consisted of a single adult male roosting in the company of Lampronycteris brachyotis and Carollia perspicillata about 18 m above the ground in the hollowed-out central cavity of a large standing tree in primary floodplain forest. The second roosting group, encountered on 1 November 1999, consisted of about 11 individuals (of which three adult females were captured) inside a hollow log in primary valleybottom upland forest. The third group, also encountered on 1 November 1999, consisted of about nine individuals (of which four adult females were captured), likewise inside a hollow log, but in primary hillside forest. At Frog Valley we captured 23 individuals of T. cirrhosus as they emerged from this roost along with Peropteryx pallidoptera , P. macrotis , Hsunycteris pattoni , and Carollia brevicauda , but many emerging bats escaped, so no exact counts are available (see the account for P. macrotis , above).

Cavities in standing trees seems to be the predominant type of natural roost in which Trachops cirrhosus is normally found in both Central and South America (Voss et al., 2016), although hollow logs are clearly also used, as we discovered near Nuevo San Juan and at Frog Valley.

Figures

FIG. 20. Photographs of A, an adult male (ROM 122096) Tonatia maresi and B, an adult Trachops cirrhosus, both captured at Jenaro Herrera. Photographs by Burton Lim (A) and Marco Tschapka (B).

FIG. 21. Trachops cirrhosus flying at Frog Valley. Photograph by Brock Fenton.