The golden-tipped bat (''Kerivoula papuensis'') is a species of

Microchiropteran Microbats constitute the suborder Microchiroptera within the order Chiroptera (bats). Bats have long been differentiated into Megachiroptera (megabats) and Microchiroptera, based on their size, the use of echolocation by the Microchiroptera an ...

in the family

Vespertilionidae Vespertilionidae is a family of microbats, of the order Chiroptera, flying, insect-eating mammals variously described as the common, vesper, or simple nosed bats. The vespertilionid family is the most diverse and widely distributed of bat familie ...

. It is found in Papua New Guinea and in Australia, especially scattered along the eastern part of Australia. The species is considered uncommon, and is listed as endangered in Australia.

Description

The golden-tipped bat has brown color and broken color patterns on its pelage; the body is covered with woolly fur. Broken color patterns support

crypsis In ecology, crypsis is the ability of an animal or a plant to avoid observation or detection by other animals. It may be a predation strategy or an antipredator adaptation. Methods include camouflage, nocturnality, subterranean lifestyle and ...

in the golden-tipped bat; thick pelage and wooly fur provide thermal insulation. The average weight of adults is 6.7g. The wings of the golden-tipped bat show a low aspect ratio, with low

wing loading In aerodynamics, wing loading is the total mass of an aircraft or flying animal divided by the area of its wing. The stalling speed of an aircraft in straight, level flight is partly determined by its wing loading. An aircraft or animal with a ...

. (That is, the wing is broad.) These wing features of support slow flight. Additionally, the large tail membrane aids the wing membrane in enabling tight turns in flight. Rounded wing tips also contribute to high maneuverability in flight. The golden-tipped bat also uses echolocation for foraging, with frequencies of approximately 155 kHz to 60 kHz.

Habitat and ecology

The golden-tipped bat has been mainly recorded in rainforest or wet sclerophyll forest. It has also been recorded in dry sclerophyll forest. They live at elevations up to 1,000m.

Roosting

They make diurnal roosts ranging from 0.5 to 9.0m above the ground, roosting on the branches of trees or in tree hollows. Female bats use the canopy of a tree for a maternity site; Roosts, and their broken patterns of pelage, enable this species to hide from their predators.

Diet and foraging strategies

Diet

Araneida Araneida is a subgroup of Tetrapulmonata. It was originally defined by Jörg Wunderlich in 2015 as a subgroup of Araneae, including all true spiders, with Wunderlich also including Uraraneida within Araneae., cited in Araneida was redefined by Wu ...

such as orb-weaver and big-jawed spiders are the main food of golden-tipped bats; as shown by the high proportion of Araneida body fragments among the particles lodged among the bats' teeth and fur. Even though Araneida is a major food source for the golden-tipped bat, these bats also consume insects which belong to 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 ...

(beetles) and

Lepidoptera Lepidoptera ( ) is an order (biology), order of insects that includes butterfly, butterflies and moths (both are called lepidopterans). About 180,000 species of the Lepidoptera are described, in 126 Family (biology), families and 46 Taxonomic r ...

(butterflies and moths).

Foraging strategies

The golden-tipped bat uses multiple foraging strategies to hunt. One is ground

gleaning Gleaning is the act of collecting leftover crops from farmers' fields after they have been commercially harvested or on fields where it is not economically profitable to harvest. It is a practice described in the Hebrew Bible that became a legall ...

. They also hover-glean, flying slowly and taking prey from elevated places such as high tree trunks. The golden tipped bat use broad bandwidth echolocation to find precise localization of a target. Additionally, they use high frequency echolocation to find stationary prey such as spiders on their webs.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q304480 Phoniscus Bats of Australia Bats of Oceania Mammals of Papua New Guinea Mammals of Queensland Mammals of New South Wales Mammals of Western New Guinea Mammals described in 1878 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Bats of New Guinea