Preliminary acoustic analysis of Myotis chiloensis (Waterhouse, 1838), Vespertilionidae, an endemic Bat of Southern Temperate Rainforest
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Date
2009
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Abstract
Echolocation is typical of microchiropteran bats and the detection of ultrasound calls has led to important advances in our knowledge about their distribution and habitat use. To date, monitoring of echolocation calls has been used most commonly for vespertilionids in different ecosystems. This has not been the case in Chile, where studies based on mist net trapping have provided our current knowledge about chiropteran biology. With the aim to broaden this knowledge, we recorded echolocation calls of Myotis chiloensis, an endemic bat of the temperate rainforest of Chile and Argentina, using the Pettersson D240X ultrasound detector (Pettersson Elektronik AB, Uppsala) in 10X time expansion mode, connected to an Edirol R-09 digital recorder. The recordings were analysed with Avisoft SASLab Pro 4.51 (R. Spetch, Germany) using 22,050 sampling frequency, FFT length 256, Hamming window and Overlap of 75%. The recordings were obtained from male bats, caught with mist nets near Pucón city (39º15'S 71º00'W), Araucania Region, southern Chile. A total of 22 echolocation calls of captured and released individuals and 75 calls of individuals flying near the shelter were recorded. The files of 12 captured and released individuals have been analyzed. The search phase pulse analysis showed that the terminal frequency characteristic for this species is 20.8 ± 0.6 kHz, with duration of 5.3 ± 2.5 ms and pulse interval of 149.9 ± 24.1 ms. The call is FM – QCF type - pulses start with a large narrowband (Frequency-Modulated), and then continue with frequency changes of a few kHz between the onset and the end of the component. This call is distinctive for the family Vespertilionidae. These is the first time the calls of M.chiloensis have been published, and this work opens up opportunities for future studies better to understand the foraging behaviour and habitat use by this species.