During the last century, survey efforts for mammals in Honduras have been few and most distributional and conservation assessments of bats have been based on historical records. Taxonomy of many records has changed. Moreover, a number of supposed Honduran occurrences are based on records from bordering countries without confirmation by a Honduran voucher. Therefore, the list of bats of Honduras lacks precision. Here, we update the number of species in the country, including taxonomic changes not reflected in recent works and new records based on museum specimens. The known number of species for Honduras is 113 with seven expected (Cormura brevirostris, Lampronycteris brachyotis, Mesophylla macconnelli, Molossus coibensis, M. pretiosus, Thyroptera discifera and Trinycteris nicefori), based on records in adjoining countries. We provide a new record for Honduras of Natalus lanatus. We confirm the presence of Cynomops greenhalli and Diaemus youngii and clarify the taxonomic status of Artibeus intermedius, Chiroderma gorgasi, Eumops ferox, Gardnerycteris keenani, Lasiurus frantzii, Myotis pilosatibialis, Molossus and Pteronotus species, and Tonatia bakeri. We recommend a reassessment of the conservation status of the bats of Honduras considering recent changes and that a number of species (e.g. Choeronycteris mexicana) have not been observed since their reports in historical records. This requires an update of the taxonomic identification keys for Honduras. The updated checklist below demonstrates the high biodiversity of Honduran bats but is also an example of how poorly many groups have been studied since they were first recorded in the country.

Estudiamos la diversidad de murciélagos en cinco diferentes coberturas vegetales del Caribe hondureño y nicaragüense: bosque maduro (BM), bosque secundario (BS), bosque ripario (BR), tacotales o guamiles (TG) y áreas abiertas (HA); determinando aspectos ecológicos y de conservación para todo el paisaje. Realizamos un esfuerzo de muestreo de 1.362 horas/red durante el cual se capturaron 2.170 individuos pertenecientes a 57 especies que representan el 39,3% de las especies de murciélagos centroamericanos. La zona evaluada presenta una alta variedad de ecosistemas, que albergan especies propias del Caribe centroamericano, incluyendo especies en riesgo como el murciélago blanco hondureño, Ectophylla alba, catalogada en ambos países como "amenazada" y a nivel mundial como "casi amenazada". Las coberturas de BM presentaron la mayor riqueza de especies con 41, seguido del BS y el BR con 31 especies cadauna. Las coberturas de TG con 26 especies, y HA con 19 fueron las de menor riqueza. Esto es evidencia de la importancia de las coberturas de bosques maduros para conservar comunidades de murciélagos poco comunes o ausentes en hábitats muy fragmentados de Centroamérica.

Mimon cozumelae Goldman, 1914 is a poorly studied phyllostomid bat with occurrence records in Honduras dating from 17 years ago. During a survey from 13–22 September 2018 in the core of the Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve, northeastern Honduras, we captured two M. cozumelae in a sample of 43 individuals recognized in 11 bat species. These records represent the fifth and sixth localities of M. cozumelae in the country and the first record since 2001. We recommend that M. cozumelae be included in the conservation and management plan of the Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve and in the conservation lists of bats in Honduras.

Understanding biodiversity patterns as well as drivers of population declines, and range losses provides crucial baselines for monitoring and conservation. However, the information needed to evaluate such trends remains unstandardised and sparsely available for many taxonomic groups and habitats, including the cave-dwelling bats and cave ecosystems. We developed the DarkCideS 1.0 (https://darkcides.org/), a global database of bat caves and species synthesised from publicly available information and datasets. The DarkCideS 1.0 is by far the largest database for cave-dwelling bats, which contains information for geographical location, ecological status, species traits, and parasites and hyperparasites for 679 bat species are known to occur in caves or use caves in part of their life histories. The database currently contains 6746 georeferenced occurrences for 402 cave-dwelling bat species from 2002 cave sites in 46 countries and 12 terrestrial biomes. The database has been developed to be collaborative and open-access, allowing continuous data-sharing among the community of bat researchers and conservation biologists to advance bat research and comparative monitoring and prioritisation for conservation.

Understanding biodiversity patterns as well as drivers of population declines, and range losses provides crucial baselines for monitoring and conservation. However, the information needed to evaluate such trends remains unstandardised and sparsely available for many taxonomic groups and habitats, including the cave-dwelling bats and cave ecosystems. Here, we present the DarkCideS 1.0, a global database of bat caves and bat species based on curated data from the literature, personal collections, and existing datasets. The database contains information for geographical distribution, ecological status, species traits, and parasites and hyperparasites for 679 bat species known to occur in caves or use caves in their life-histories. The database contains 6746 georeferenced occurrences for 402 cave-dwelling bat species from 2002 cave sites in 46 countries and 12 terrestrial biomes. The database has been developed to be a collaborative, open-access, and user-friendly platform, allowing continuous data-sharing among the community of bat researchers and conservation biologists. The database has a range of potential applications in bat research and enables comparative monitoring and prioritisation for conservation.