First
record of Lesser Yellow House Bat Scotophilus kuhlii Leach,
1821 from Secunderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India with a note on its diet
Bhargavi Srinivasulu 1,
C. Srinivasulu 2 & P. Venkateshwarlu 1
1,2 Wildlife Biology Section,
Department of Zoology, University College of Science, Osmania University,
Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh 500007, India
Email: 2 hyd2masawa@gmail.com
(corresponding author)
Date of publication (online): 26 September 2010
Date of publication (print): 26 September 2010
ISSN 0974-7907 (online) | 0974-7893 (print)
Editor: Sanjay Molur
Manuscript details:
Ms
# o1989
Received
19 May 2008
Final
revised received 27 May 2010
Finally
accepted 23 September 2010
Citation: Srinivasulu,
B., C. Srinivasulu & P. Venkateshwarlu (2010). First
record of Lesser Yellow House Bat Scotophilus kuhlii Leach, 1821 from Secunderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India with a note
on its diet. Journal of Threatened Taxa 2(10): 1234-1236.
Copyright: © Bhargavi
Srinivasulu, C. Srinivasulu & P. Venkateshwarlu 2010. Creative
Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. JoTT allows unrestricted use
of this article in any medium for non-profit purposes, reproduction and
distribution by providing adequate credit to the authors and the source of
publication.
Acknowledgements: We thank the Head, Department of Zoology, OsmaniaUniversity for providing necessary facilities. Mast. C. Aditya Srinivasulu for
his enthusiasm, assistance in the field and for locating the roost of this
species. We acknowledge the DBT, Govt. of India for financial grant and the
first author acknowledges the Research Associateship from Council for
Scientific and Industrial Research, New Delhi..
For images & tables -- click here
Abbreviations: OUNHM – Natural History
Museum of Osmania University, FA – Forearm, HB – Head and Body
Length, Tl – Tail Length, E – Ear, Hf – Hindfoot, GTL
Greatest length of the skull, CBL – Condylo-basal Length, CCL –
Condylo-canine Length, CM3 – Maxillary toothrow, M3-M3– Posterior Palatal Width, C1-C1 – Anterior
Palatal Width, M – Mandible Length, CM3 – Mandibular
Toothrow, ZB – Zygomatic Breadth, BB – Breadth of Braincase, PC –
Postorbital Constriction, ZSI – Zoological Survey of India.
On 20 April 2007, we located a roosting site in
a dilapidated house in the suburbs of Secunderabad consisting of five
individuals of bats. From 21 April
2007 to 31 January 2008, we collected the pellets under the roosting site on a
fortnightly basis. Collected
pellets were stored in plastic containers for dietary analysis. On 5 February 2008 all individuals were
mist netted, sexed, measured and, all but one, were released. One male specimen was retained as
voucher (OUNHM.CHI.1.2008) and deposited in the Osmania University Natural
History Museum, Department of Zoology, Osmania University, Hyderabad. Observations carried out on the
individuals of the roost and morphometrics revealed them as the Lesser Yellow
House Bat Scotophilus
kuhlii Leach, 1821 (Bates
& Harrison 1997). Analysis of
the faecal pellets collected was done between 10 February and 10 March
2008. Through this note, we report
a new locality record of Scotophilus
kuhlii Leach, 1821 in
Andhra Pradesh and provide brief note on its diet.
The Lesser Yellow House Bat is a widely
distributed species and has been recorded from Pakistan to Taiwan, Sri Lanka,
Western Malaysia to Philippines and Indonesia (Bates & Harrison 1997;
Simmons 2005). In India, it is
distributed in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat,
Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Meghalaya, Karnataka, Kerala, Orissa, Rajasthan,
Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal (Bates & Harrison 1997;
Molur et al. 2002).
From Andhra Pradesh, Scotophilus kuhlii has been reported from Kotalcheruvu in Kurnool
District (Chakraborty et al. 2004) and from Koduru, Balapalli and Thummalabailu
in Cuddapah District (Bates & Harrison 1997). All these locations are south of Krishna River and so far
there are no locality based reports of this species
between rivers Krishna and Godavari in the eastern part of peninsular India.
Scotophilus kuhlii frequents both the rural and urban landscapes
and is known to roost in crevices and holes in walls of huts and old buildings,
caves, old temples, palm fronds, hollows in palm trees and dried leaves on
trees (Wroughton 1915; Brosset 1962; Sinha 1986).
A brief description of the specimens from
Secunderabad and their diet is provided below.
Description
External: Dorsally, the pelage is soft and olive brown in
colour and ventrally creamish (Image 1). On the throat, a distinct ‘collar’ is seen. The muzzle is broad and blunt. Ears are small compared to the head; the tragus is about
half the size of the ear and is crescent shaped. The tragus is separated from the pinna by a distinct notch.
Cranial: The skull is robust and broad; the lambda is
prominent and projects well above the supraoccipital; the lambdoid crests are
well developed; the sagittal crest is well defined posteriorly and bifurcates
in the interorbital region (Image 2).
Dental:The upper incisor (i2) is unicuspid and is nearly in contact with
the canine; the single upper premolar is large and two-thirds the height of the
canine; m3 is greatly reduced; the three lower incisors are
bicuspidate; the lower canine is large and curved; the first lower premolar
(pm2) is very small and situated in between the canine and the well developed
second premolar (pm4); the second premolar (pm4) is nearly two-thirds the
height of the canine; m3 is very much reduced with the talonoid being reduced
in comparison to the trigonoid (Image 3).
Baculum:The baculum is small, bluntly triangular in shape. On the dorsal view, the base
seems wider than the apex and is very narrow in lateral view with wide base
(Images 4 & 5).
Morphometric measurements (mm.): External: FA - 49.15; HB - 60.33; Tl - 48.80; E - 16.26; Hf - 10.8. Cranial: GTL - 18.48; CBL - 17.46; CCL
- 17.09; CM3 - 6.47; M3-M3 - 8.30; C1-C1- 6.13; M - 13.74; CM3 - 7.37; ZB - 13.02; BB - 10.03; PC - 2.98. These measurements are that of the
voucher specimen only, external measurements of other
specimens of the roost is provided in Table 1.
Dietary Analysis
Dietary analysis
was carried out following standard techniques (Whitaker 1988). From each collection of faecal pellets
10-12 individual pellets were randomly selected and analysed. Each individual pellet was moistened
with alcohol and teased to reveal the insect parts. The insect parts were then identified to the lowest possible
taxonomic level following standard literature (Boror & DeLong 1963; Shiel
et al. 1997). The dietary analysis
of Scotophilus kuhlii revealed that it majorly feeds on members of
the orders Diptera, Coleoptera and Hymenoptera (Table 2). The dipterans included representatives
of the families Anisopodidae, Chironomidae, Culicidae and Scatophagidae. The coleopterans included representatives
of the families Carabidae and Scarabaeidae, while the
hymenopterans were represented by Ichneumonidae.
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