First records for Lasiurus blossevillii, Histiotus humboldti and Enchisthenes hartii (Mammalia: Chiroptera) in an urban region in Southern Ecuador

Abstract

Currently in Ecuador there are 171 bats species, however little is known of their presence in urban and peri-urban areas. These information gaps make it difficult to know the distribution of the species, as well as the ecosystems they are occupying. In this work we report for the first time three bats species in the urban and peri-urban area of Cuenca City which is located in the south of the Inter-Andean Valley. The individuals were identified taxonomically by morphological and morphometric characters, these were deposited in the Zoological Collection of the University of Azuay. The specimens reported in this work are: an adult male of Lasiurus blossevillii, a juvenile female of Histiotus humboldti, and an adult male of Enchisthenes hartii. These new records allow us to contribute with information on the distribution of these species, as well as raise new questions about the use of present resources by these bats in the urban and peri-urban environments of the city.

Confirming the presence of Lasiurus frantzii (Peters, 1870) (Chiroptera, Vespertilionidae) in South America: more questions than answers

“…However, the distributions of L. frantzii and L. blossevillii in northern South America are uncertain. One of the hypotheses is that the Amazon forest limits the distribution of L. frantzii (see Gardner and Handley 2008; Morales-Martínez and Ramírez-Chaves 2015 ), and therefore the species would be widely distributed in the Andean cordillera and cis-Andean localities in northern South America (Handley 1960), including likely records from urban areas in Ecuador (see Nivelo-Villavicencio et al 2019 ), Colombia ( Morales-Martínez and Ramírez-Chaves 2015 ), Venezuela (Gardner and Handley 2008); it might reach Peru and Bolivia (Fig. 5 ).…”