Phyllostomus hastatus (Pallas, 1767)

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 : 77-81

Phyllostomus hastatus (Pallas, 1767)

Figure 19B

VOUCHER MATERIAL (TOTAL = 27): Jenaro Herrera (AMNH 278513; MUSM 840, 875, 876, 5507), Nuevo San Juan (AMNH 272681, 272682,

TABLE 34

External and Craniodental Measurements (mm) and Weights (g) of Phyllostomus elongatus

and P. hastatus from the Yavarí-Ucayali Interfluve

272754, 272755, 273073, 273090, 273154; MUSM 13237–13240, 15256–15258), Orosa (AMNH 74098, 74099), Quebrada Betilia (MUSA 15198), Quebrada Lobo (MUSA 15141), Quebrada Sábalo (MUSA 15210, 15229, 15230), Río Blanco (MUSA 15094); see table 34 for measurements.

UNVOUCHERED OBSERVATIONS: An unspecified number of individuals of Phyllostomus hastatus were observed at Quebrada Pobreza during the Tapiche-Blanco Rapid Biological Inventory (Escobedo-Torres, 2015). This species was also identified using acoustic methods during the CEBIO bat course at Jenaro Herrera.

IDENTIFICATION: Phyllostomus hastatus is easily distinguished from other congeners by the fol-

lowing combination of characteristics: large size (forearm> 75 mm, greatest length of skull> 35 mm); plagiopatagium attached to side of foot; calcar equal to or longer than foot; ear length (from notch)> 25 mm; and sagittal crest well developed (Williams and Genoways, 2008; López-Baucells et al., 2018). Descriptions and measurements of P. hastatus were provided by Goodwin and Greenhall (1961), Husson (1962, 1978), Taddei (1975), Swanepoel and Genoways (1979), Brosset and Charles-Dominique (1990), Simmons and Voss (1998), Santos et al. (2003), Lim et al. (2005), and Rodríguez-Posada and Sánchez-Palomino (2009).

There is some disagreement concerning the recognition of subspecies in Phyllostomus hasta-

TABLE 35

Roosting Groups of Phyllostomus elongatus Observed near Nuevo San Juan

tus. Koopman (1994) and Santos et al. (2003) recognized two: P. h. panamensis ( Honduras to Peru and Venezuela) and P. h. hastatus (eastern Venezuela to northern Bolivia and southeastern Brazil). By contrast, Williams and Genoways (2008) recognized three: P. h. aruma (Tocantins, Brazil); P. h. hastatus (eastern Venezuela to northern Bolivia and southeastern Brazil); and P. h. panamensis ( Honduras to western and northern Colombia and northern Venezuela). Rodríguez- Posada and Sánchez-Palomino (2009) hypothesized that P. h. hastatus occurs east of the Andes whereas populations of P. h. panamensis occur west of the Andes. Under any of these trinomial classifications, our material would be expected to belong to the nominotypical subspecies.

Ascorra et al. (1993), Fleck et al. (2002), and Medina et al. (2015) correctly identified specimens from Jenaro Herrera, Nuevo San Juan, Quebrada Betilia, Quebrada Lobo, Quebrada Sábalo, and Río Blanco as Phyllostomus hastatus . The voucher material we examined from the Yavarí-Ucayali interfluve conforms to previous descriptions of P. hastatus hastatus , with measurements that fall within the range of size variation previously documented for that taxon.

REMARKS: Of 73 nocturnal captures of Phyllostomus hastatus accompanied by ecological data from our region, 65 were in ground-level nets and 8 were in elevated nets. Forty-eight mistnet captures were in primary forest, 8 were in secondary vegetation, 16 were in clearings, and 1 was in a swampy mineral lick (collpa). In May and June of 1998 we mistnetted many indi- viduals of Phyllostomus hastatus that were covered in the yellow-green pollen of balsa trees ( Malvaceae : Ochroma pyramidale ), which were then mass-flowering along the banks of the nearby Río Gálvez.

We found four roosting groups of Phyllostomus hastatus near Nuevo San Juan. The first, encountered on 9 September 1999, consisted of a single adult male that was roosting with Lophostoma silvicolum in a hollowed-out arboreal termite nest about 4 m above the ground in young secondary vegetation. The second, encountered on 15 September 1999, consisted of three individuals (of which one adult male and one adult female were collected) that occupied an abandoned woodpecker hole about 9 m above the ground in an Astrocaryum jauari palm on the bank of the Río Gálvez. The third, encountered on 23 September 1999, consisted of seven individuals (of which one adult male and five adult females were collected) that occupied an abandoned woodpecker hole about 9 m above the ground in the swollen part of the trunk of an Iriartea deltoidea palm in primary hilltop forest. The fourth, encountered on 22 October 1999, consisted of a single adult male roosting in the company of Carollia perspicillata and Molossus rufus in another cavity that may have originally been excavated by woodpeckers, about 25 m above the ground in the trunk of a large dicotyledonous tree in primary floodplain forest near an oxbow lake.

Hollow trees and termite nests seem to be the most commonly encountered types of roosts for Phyllostomus hastatus throughout its extensive

TABLE 36

External and Craniodental Measurements (mm) and Weights (g) of Tonatia maresi

and Trachops cirrhosus from the Yavarí-Ucayali Interfluve

geographic range, although it has also been found roosting in caves and foliage (see literature reviewed by Voss et al., 2016).

Figures

FIG. 19. Photographs of A, an adult Phyllostomus elongatus captured at Quebrada Blanco; and B, an adult female (ROM 122132) P. hastatus captured at Jenaro Herrera. Photographs by Marco Tschapka (A) and Burton Lim (B).