A new record of Kerivoula hardwickii (Horsefield, 1824) (Mammalia: Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) after 23 years from a lowland rainforests of Sri Lanka

Abstract

Distribution of Kerivoula hardwickii, Hardwicke's woolly bat, in Sri Lanka is restricted to the central highlands and to northeastern region of the country, and so far, only recorded from four distinct locations. In Sri Lanka, this species was last documented in the year 1994, and no subsequent surveys recorded this species in Sri Lanka, thus considered rare in Sri Lanka. In contrast, within its southern Asian biogeography, K. hardwickii is widely distributed, particularly in Southeastern Asia. In this study, a single male of K. hardwickii was observed in lowland rainforest ecoregion of Sri Lanka near Labugama-Kalatuwana Forest Reserve where the bat was roosting on a curled live banana frond. The bat was roosting 1.8 m above the ground. This was the first instance K. hardwickii was recorded in the lowland rainforests of Sri Lanka, which extends this species’ biogeography of Sri Lanka into the lowland wet zone. Thus, distribution range of K. hardwickii in Sri Lanka could be broader than historically documented. However, intensive surveys, particularly in lowland rainforest region, are required to validate the true distribution of this bat in Sri Lanka.

Bioclimatic Envelopes for Two Bat Species from a Tropical Island: Insights on Current and Future Distribution from Ecological Niche Modeling

“…The wide geographic range of K. picta predicted by our ENM is not surprising given its associations with a range of roosting sites (dried and dead leaves, flower clusters) located in different vegetation communities (primary and secondary forests, home gardens, forest plantations) [10,101,102]. Our model predictions on K. malpasi indicates its preference to higher altitudes (>2100 m a.s.l) characterized by low annual temperatures and high precipitation; these model predictions agree with the current consensus on its distribution range being limited to the central highlands [3,37,40]. K. malpasi has been reported in both natural and manmade ecosystems, such as dry-mixed evergreen forests, tropical montane forests, paddy fields, home gardens, and banana plantations [3,37,40].…”

“…The existing distribution records of K. picta are scattered throughout the Sri Lankan lowlands (<600 m), although they have been infrequently recorded in higher elevations (up to 1372 m). In contrast, K. malpasi is only known from very few localities of the central highlands (up to 1260 m), and southwestern and northeastern Sri Lanka [3,40] (Figure 2). Kerivoula picta is broadly distributed across the Indo-Malayan region [3,10] and listed as "Near threatened" in both the Global and Sri Lankan Red Lists [34,39].…”

“…(2) published historical accounts [3,10,36,[40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47]; (3) the Global Biodiversity Information Facility [48]. Although distribution of K. picta is not limited to Sri Lanka, since our focal area is Sri Lanka, we did not use distribution records outside Sri Lanka.…”

“…Since the georeferenced points for K. malpasi were limited and spatially dispersed (on average, 35 km between any two nearest occurrence points), we did not perform any autocorrelation diagnoses. [3,10,36,[40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48]. New records are from unpublished data from personal observations of the authors and personnel communications with expert field biologists.…”

“…Species occurrence records were obtained for both focal species within Sri Lanka from (1) unpublished opportunistic observations by field biologists updated from 2016 to 2020; (2) published historical accounts [3,10,36,[40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47]; (3) the Global Biodiversity Information Facility [48]. Although distribution of K. picta is not limited to Sri Lanka, since our focal area is Sri Lanka, we did not use distribution records outside Sri Lanka.…”