Saccopteryx leptura (Schreber)

Simmons, Nancy B. & Voss, Robert S., 1998, The mammals of Paracou, French Guiana, a Neotropical lowland rainforest fauna. Part 1, Bats, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 237, pp. 1-219 : 42

Saccopteryx leptura (Schreber)

VOUCHER MATERIAL: 12 females (AMNH *265968, *265972, *267067, *267383, *267388, *267845, *267848, *267849; MNHN *1995­854, *1995­855, *1995­856, *1995­857) and 13 males (AMNH *265969, *265971, *267065, *267066, *267068, *267387, *267844, *267846, *267847; MNHN 1995­858, *1995­859, *1995­860, *1995­861); see table 8 for measurements. One individual of unknown sex (AMNH 266978) was recovered from the crop of a bat falcon (see Field Observations).

IDENTIFICATION: Descriptions and comparative measurements of Saccopteryx leptura from the Guianas and other regions of northern South American were provided by Sanborn (1937), Husson (1962, 1978), Brosset and Charles­Dominique (1990), and Jones and Hood (1993). No subspecies are currently recognized (Koopman, 1994).

Our specimens conform in all respects to previous descriptions of Saccopteryx leptura .

FIELD OBSERVATIONS: Of the 25 individuals of Saccopteryx leptura we captured at Paracou, 10 were taken in ground­level mistnets, 6 in elevated mistnets, and 9 at roosts; in addition, 1 specimen was found in the crop of a road­killed Falco rufigularis (which had also eaten a specimen of Saccopteryx bilineata ). Of the 10 bats captured in groundlevel mistnets, 1 was taken in well­drained primary forest, 1 in creekside primary forest, and the remaining 8 in manmade clearings. Of the six specimens captured in elevated nets, two were taken between 10 and 21 m above a narrow dirt road, two at 35–38 m in a treefall gap in well­drained primary forest, and two at 7–10 m in the subcanopy of swampy primary forest. Five mistnet captures were made before dark, between 18:00 and 18:40 hours.

We observed five roosting groups of Saccopteryx leptura , each at a different site. As for S. bilineata , roosts of this species are vertically oriented spaces, but we found S. leptura roosting in more exposed sites that were not as dark as those used by S. bilineata . One roost was in the half­hollow trunk of a dead tree in secondary vegetation (fig. 23), three were in shallow recesses between the buttresses of living trees (in both swampy and well­drained primary forest), and the fifth was inside the semicylindrical basal sheath of a dead palm frond dangling about 20 m above the ground in the subcanopy of swampy primary forest. The roosting groups we found at Paracou consisted of one to four individuals. Three groups collected in their entirety consisted of (1) a solitary adult male, (2) an adult male­female pair, and (3) two adult males, one adult female, and one juvenile.