Malaysian Bat Education Adventure

Hi Everyone
Well it was a bit of a quiet night last night, not so many bats, and most of them were our “familiar faces”. We set traps KL0787, KL0789, KL0791, KL0793, KL0795, KL0797, KL0799, KL0801, KL0802, KL0803, KL0805, KL0807, and we had clear weather all night.

Here are the data:

We did trap on the 29th and 28th, so be sure to check previous posts so you get all the data!

Dr Kingston

Hi Folks

We continue to head further into the forest. Last night’s traps were KL0782, KL0784,KL0786, KL0788, KL0790, KL0792, KL0794, KL0796, KL0800, KL0804, KL0806, KL0808. We had some light rain between 1 am and 3 am.

Ain is getting a bit demoralized as she really needs to catch females for her study, but we have been getting mostly males — alot of hard work and walking with not enough results! We did get a few females in the morning, which was good. Here are the data:

Dr Kingston

Hi Everyone
Because of the rain we had a couple of weeks ago, we are continuing to trap over the weekend. The traps are quite a long way from the house now, it takes well over 30 mins to get to the first one, so we are getting back home quite late these days. The traps set were KL0758  , KL0760, KL0762, KL0764, KL0766, KL0768, KL0770, KL0772, KL0774, KL0776, KL0778, KL0780, although we had to close KL0762 due to the presence of large ants.

 Last night it seemed like it is was the male Hipposideros diadema that were out to party (along with the Kerivoula intermedia again)! We also had another female Hipposideros larvatus, but it was especially nice to get a male Megaderma spasma, which is one of two Malaysian species belonging to the family Megadermatidae (the False Vampire bats — not vampire bats at all of course!).

At first glance, Megaderma looks quite a bit like Nycteris tragata, but when you look closely, there are alot of differences. First of all, Megaderma has a section of skin connecting the two ears, which Nycteris doesn’t have. Second, there is only a very small tail in Megaderma, that is barely visible, but Nycteris has a long tail that goes all the way to the end of the tail membrane and ends in Y-shaped piece of cartilage. Megaderma has a distinct noseleaf, whereas Nycteris has a slit up the length of the muzzle with flaps of skin either side. Also, if you remember where the tragus is (in the ear) you will see it is very large in Megaderma and actually is made up of two lobes (we describe it as a bifid tragus), but it is short and rounded in Nycteris.  So once you know to look for those things it’s pretty easy to tell them apart.

The fur is long, fluffy and is pale grey to dull brown in adults. Juveniles are uniformly grey in colour. The forearm ranges from around 53-64 mm and weight 18-34 g. It is primarily a forest inhabitant and can be found roosting caves and occasionally in large tree hollows, culverts, tunnels, crevices of rock-boulders, and abandoned outbuildings. They like to roost in small groups of 2-5 individuals. Diet includes large insects like grasshoppers, cockroaches, dung beetles and moths, and occasionally small vertebrates such as frogs and mice.

Megaderma spasma, one of the two Malaysian species belonging to the family Megadermatidae

A small group of Megaderma spasma in a roost (Photo K. Fletcher)

Here are the data

Dr Kingston

Hi Everyone,

Well we had a pretty busy night last night. I think there must have been a Kerivoula intermedia party going on because we caught loads of the little guys!

The traps are still off the grid, and were KL0734, KL0736, KL0738, KL0740, KL0742, KL0744, KL0746, KL0748, KL0750, KL0752, KL0754, KL0756. It was dry all night and we have a full moon.

I won’t say much more because I think you are going to be busy with the data, except to add that today Jovic, Zie and Saveng finished their time with us and went up to Kuala Lumpur after lunch. They fly home to the Philippines, Indonesia and Cambodia tomorrow. We are going to miss them!

Dr Kingston

Hi Folks
Last night we took a break from forest trapping to go to the caves at Kota Gelanggi. This turned out to be a good plan, as it poured with rain (suprise!) back at Kuala Lompat. We left around 3 pm and got to the caves around 4.30 pm. The caves are a huge complex, but we just focussed on a couple of them, as we were trying to get samples of two species in particular, Hipposideros diadema and Rhinolophus affinis. So at one small cave, Gua Tongkat, we set up a harp trap like we did at Gua Samat to get the Rhinolophus affinis. At a larger cave, we set up three mist nets to get the H. diadema. Unfortunately there was a group of about 50 high school students camping right by Gua Tongkat and we think all the noise had disturbed the bats there — we did catch about 25 R. affinis but they were mostly males (and Ain needs the females). Last month when things were quiet she caught at least 20 females in the exact same spot. Disturbance at caves is one of the big threats to bats around the world; if they are disturbed too often they will abandon the cave completely.

The mist nets managed to get about 15 Hipposideros diadema, but the number of females was again less then when Ain was here last month. We caught a few other species, including the Emballonura monticola that we caught in the forest the other day. As before, we split into three groups, with Ain doing the breeding study, Julie photographing wing shapes, and me taking body temperatures. Anybody sitting about with nothing to do was sent to check the nets and traps!!

We finally finished up around 1 am and got back to Kuala Lompat around 2 am, so everyone slept in late this morning!

Tonight (weather permitting) we are back in the forest.

Top - Gua Tongkat. Bottom - Saveng near the opening of Gua Tongkat where we set the harp trap

Saveng and Julie setting up the harp trap in Gua Tongkat

Bats aren't the only critters in and around the caves. Top: a very large (about 20 cm) walking stick. Middle: a rather large spider with her egg sac. Bottom: a large toad in one of the pools by the cave. Being a bat biologist I'm afraid I don't know any of their names!

1am, time to release the bats. Top: Julie saying goodbye to a Hipposideros diadema. Below: Jirah and Diah releasing a Rhinolophus affinis