The Cape hairy bat, also known as little brown bat, Temminck's mouse-eared bat, Cape myotis, tricoloured mouse-eared bat, Cape hairy myotis, Temminck's hairy bat and three-coloured bat (''Myotis tricolor'') is a
species of
vesper bat that is found in
Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the List of sov ...
.
Description
The Cape hairy bat is a diminutive bat which is very similar in appearance to the even more diminutive
rufous mouse-eared bat. It has orangey to fufous fur on its back with slightly paler fur on the underparts, the fur is long, erect and his soft to the touch. Each hair is dark at its base and coppery-red towards the tips. it has relatively broad wings which are dark brown contrasting with the bright fur of the body. It has a plain face with no nose leaf and with moderately large brown ears which have a long narrow tragus.
It weighs an average of 13.9g and the forelimb length is 49.5mm.
Distribution
The Cape hairy bat has only been recorded from the uplands of north-western
Liberia
Liberia (), officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to its north, Ivory Coast to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean ...
in West Africa and form a few places in the
Democratic Republic of Congo and
Rwanda
Rwanda (; rw, u Rwanda ), officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of Central Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator ...
in central Africa. It occurs much more widely in East Africa, ranging from
Ethiopia in the north, south through to southern
South Africa.
[
]
Habitat
The Cape hairy bat requires suitable cave and is restricted to mountainous and rocky regions where these caves at found and its absence from flat treeless areas.[ It will roost in abandoned mines and generally prefers large caverns which contain pools of water.]
Habits
The Cape hairy bat forages for aerial insects along the edges of vegetation, where it captures species from the insect orders Coleoptera
Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 describ ...
, Hemiptera
Hemiptera (; ) is an order (biology), order of insects, commonly called true bugs, comprising over 80,000 species within groups such as the cicadas, aphids, planthoppers, leafhoppers, Reduviidae, assassin bugs, Cimex, bed bugs, and shield bugs. ...
, Diptera
Flies are insects of the order Diptera, the name being derived from the Greek δι- ''di-'' "two", and πτερόν ''pteron'' "wing". Insects of this order use only a single pair of wings to fly, the hindwings having evolved into advanced ...
, Neuroptera
The insect order Neuroptera, or net-winged insects, includes the lacewings, mantidflies, antlions, and their relatives. The order consists of some 6,000 species. Neuroptera can be grouped together with the Megaloptera and Raphidioptera in th ...
and Hymenoptera
Hymenoptera is a large order (biology), order of insects, comprising the sawfly, sawflies, wasps, bees, and ants. Over 150,000 living species of Hymenoptera have been described, in addition to over 2,000 extinct ones. Many of the species are Par ...
.[
The Cape hairy bat is a sociable species which roosts in caves. It switches between winter hibernation roosts and summer maternity caves, an occupied cave may contain up to 1500 individual bats. In KwaZulu Natal copulation occurred in May and the females stored the sperm until using it to fertilise the ovum in September, the young were born in November and December, the suckled for six weeks after birth. Each female give birth to a single baby and they gather together in maternity roosts to do so.][
]
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q2680683
Mouse-eared bats
Mammals described in 1832
Bats of Africa
Taxonomy articles created by Polbot