Platyrrhinus infuscus (Peters, 1880)

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 : 110-111

Platyrrhinus infuscus (Peters, 1880)

VOUCHER MATERIAL (TOTAL = 8): Nuevo San Juan (AMNH 272841, 272842, 273047, 273048; MUSM 13242, 15259, 15288, 15289); see table 47 for measurements.

UNVOUCHERED OBSERVATIONS: None.

IDENTIFICATION: Platyrrhinus infuscus is known from eastern Colombia, eastern Ecuador, eastern Peru, eastern Bolivia, and western Brazil (Velazco, 2005; Gardner, 2008f). This species is distinguished from other congeners by its large size (forearm> 54 mm); buffy to dark-brown dorsal fur; inconspicuous facial and dorsal stripes; short, sparse fur on the dorsal surfaces of the feet; second lower molar with a posterolabial cuspulid; M1 parastyle present; and m1 metaconid well developed (Velazco, 2005; Gardner, 2008f; López-Baucells et al., 2018). Descriptions and measurements of P. infuscus have been provided by Cabrera (1958), Gardner and Carter (1972), Swanepoel and Genoways (1979), Velazco (2005), Velazco and Gardner (2009), and Velazco and Patterson (2019). No subspecies are currently recognized (Gardner, 2008f).

Fleck et al. (2002) correctly identified their specimens from Nuevo San Juan as Platyrrhinus infuscus . Their voucher material conforms to previous descriptions of the species, with measurements that fall within the previously documented range of intraspecific size variation.

REMARKS: The only specimens of Platyrrhinus infuscus accompanied by capture information from our region were collected near Nuevo San Juan, where two were taken in ground-level mistnets in primary forest, one was taken in a ground-level net in secondary vegetation, and five were taken from roosts. We found two roosts of this species, both of them beneath undercut stream banks in primary forest. The first group, encountered on 4 September 1999, consisted of an adult male and three adult females. The second group, encountered on 26 October 1999, also consisted of four individuals, but only a single adult female was collected. Neither roost contained other species of bats.

This species was previously known to roost in caves (Tuttle, 1970; Gardner and Carter, 1972), 12 but, as noted by Gardner (2008f: 337), “the species obviously uses other types of roosts because caves and grottos are scarce in the western Amazon basin,” where it is widely distributed. Our observations from Nuevo San Juan suggest that undercut stream banks may be the typical roost of Platyrrhinus infuscus in caveless terrain, but Garbino and Tavares (2018) recorded a single instance of this species roosting in a hollow tree .