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‘COMICAL’ BAT NOT SEEN IN 40 YEARS IS FOUND AGAIN IN A RWANDAN PARK

by Liz Kimbrough on 8 March 2022


 * For the first time in 40 years, researchers caught a Hill’s horseshoe bat,
   confirming that the bat population still clings to life in Rwanda’s Nyungwe
   National Park, a highly biodiverse area containing old-growth cloud forest.
 * Rhinolophus bats echolocate through the unique and exaggerated folds on their
   noses called “nose leaves,” which, in the case of the Hill’s horseshow bat,
   gives them a bass frequency, unlike the soprano of other horseshoe bats.
 * Now that researchers have identified their call, they can use acoustic
   monitoring to eavesdrop on the critically endangered species with minimal
   impact.
 * A lead researcher on the team said the bats are likely restricted to a core
   area, and although the park is well-patrolled by rangers, this area should be
   a focus in order to protect the remaining bats, whose population remains
   unknown.

“When we caught it, we all just looked at it and said, ‘You look ridiculous.
Look how big your nose leaf is,’” Jon Flanders, director of endangered species
interventions at Bat Conservation International, told Mongabay. The odd-looking
creature in their net was a Hill’s horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus hilli)—the first
seen since 1981.

“We feared the species may have already gone extinct,” Flanders said. “To think
that we’ve been the first people to actually see this bat in almost 40 years …
It was just remarkable.”

The Hill’s horseshoe bat, not seen in 40 years, was found again in Rwanda’s
Nyungwe National Park. Photo by  Jon Flanders, Bat Conservation International.

Flanders was part of a 10-day, 10-night expedition searching for the elusive bat
in the old-growth cloud forests of Rwanda’s Nyungwe National Park. The fieldwork
was brutal, he said, almost continuous rain pummeling down as they hiked through
the steep terrain on little sleep. But their work paid off one night around 4
a.m. when they pulled the unusual bat from their net.

“We knew immediately that the bat we had captured was unusual and remarkable,”
Winifred Frick, chief scientist of Bat Conservation International and a member
of the expedition, said in a press release. “The facial features were
exaggerated to the point of comical.”

As soon as they caught the fluffy, wrinkle-faced mammal, Flanders said, the
group went nearly silent and began poring over textbooks to be sure of their
find.

On their quest for the lost bat, the researchers used a series of traps,
including a very fine net known as a mist net that is used to catch birds and
bats. When mist-netting, researchers try to release their catch as quickly as
possible to minimize stress to the animal, especially when that animal is
critically endangered.

So, Frick made measurements while Flanders recorded the bat’s echolocation calls
and others compared notes in their bat books. “We just know that the clock is
ticking before we have to let the thing go,” Flanders said.

Members of the expedition spent long hours labeling their findings and reviewing
their notes for unfamiliar species. Photo by Jon Flanders, Bat Conservation
International

He was able to capture the first recording of the Hill’s horseshoe bat. But
initially, he didn’t trust the readings, which registered the call at an
unusually low frequency. Once they let the bat go, it flew along a nearby road
and Flanders said he sprinted after it in the moonlight with his recorder,
confirming that, while other species of Rhinolophus bats are sopranos, the
Hill’s horseshoe bat is a bass.

“Their nose is just phenomenally shaped and they echolocate through their nose,
which is part of the reason why they have this really unique and exaggerated
nose leaves … so they can control the call partly through their nose folds,”
Flanders said. “No bats in the U.S. echolocate through their nose. It’s really
an Old World trait.”

The exaggerated nose fold of the Hill’s horseshoe bat helps it to control its
low-frequency echolocation call. Photo by Winifred Frick, Bat Conservation
International

Knowledge of the bats’ calls comes in handy as a low-impact conservation tool.
Now, rangers and researchers can survey for bats using sound detectors alone,
“which is great,” Flanders said, “because we have a critically endangered bat of
unknown population size … this way it’s zero impact because we’re just
eavesdropping on them as they’re flying around and doing their normal
behaviors.”

“Knowing the echolocation calls for this species is a game changer,” Paul
Webala, senior lecturer at Maasai Mara University in Kenya and one of the team’s
lead scientists, said in a press release.

Flanders said the project couldn’t have been done without the Nyungwe park
rangers, who found most of the caves and mist-net locations before the
researchers arrived and have now recorded more than a quarter of a million audio
files to survey for bat calls. He also credits the collaboration between Bat
Conservation International, the Rwanda Development Board and the Rwanda Wildlife
Conservation Association.

All of the records from this expedition, both of the Hill’s horseshoe bat and
other bat species, are now available through the Global Biodiversity Information
Facility (GBIF).

Researchers preparing to enter a cave in search of bats. Pictures (Left to
Right) Dr. Winifred Frick, Dr. Prince Kaleme, and Sospeter Kibiwot. Photo by
Winifred Frick, Bat Conservation International. Bat Conservation International
and collaborators preparing equipment before it was used to capture bats in the
Nyungwe National Park. Photo by Winifred Frick, Bat Conservation International.

The collaborators have plans for another expedition this year to further study
the bats’ behavior, DNA sequence their guano (droppings) to figure out what
kinds of insects they eat, and find where the species roosts (none have been
found roosting in caves like their other Rhinolophus relatives). While other
bats like to hide in small crevices, these hang out in the open with their wings
wrapped around their fluffy bodies, “looking a bit like a ripe plum,” Flanders
said.

“Now our real work begins to figure out how to protect this species long into
the future,” he said.

So far, acoustic monitoring suggests that the bats are restricted to a small
core range in the park. Flanders said the forest is well patrolled by rangers,
but that staff should “double down” on this core area where the critically
endangered bat lives to make sure no one is damaging this critical habitat.

Nyungwe National Park is the only location that the Hill’s horseshoe bat has
ever been found and researchers believe it lives in one core area within the
park. Photo by Winifred Frick, Bat Conservation International

Significant amounts of Nyungwe National Park have been lost or degraded through
poaching, fires and agricultural encroachment, and although the Rwandan
government has made significant investments in protecting the park and halting
this destruction over the past decade, Flanders said, there are still threats.

“Nyungwe National Park is one of the most biologically important montane
rainforests in Central Africa, supporting an exceptional range of biodiversity
including many rare and endemic species, including bats,” said Eugene Mutangana,
conservation management expert for the Rwanda Development Board.

A Central African oyan (Poiana richardsonii) photographed by an arboreal camera
trap. This was the first record of this species in Nyungwe National Park. Photo
courtesy of WCS Rwanda. The L’hoest’s Monkey (Cercopithecus lhoesti),
photographed in Nyungwe National Park by camera trap, is listed as vulnerable on
the IUCN Red List. The park boasts a dozen primate species. Photo courtesy of
WCS Rwanda.

In another study that took place in the park, researchers placed 108 cameras in
trees. In one month, they spotted 35 different mammals, including six primate
species.

“A lot of people think that by now we know everything … but we just found a new
species here,” Jennifer Moore, lead author of the camera trap study and a
researcher at the University of Florida, told Mongabay in a 2020 interview.

“So that just goes to show that even in places where researchers have been for
decades, there is so much more to learn.”

Banner Image of  Hill’s horshoe bat by Jon Flanders, Bat Conservation
International

Liz Kimbrough is a staff writer for Mongabay. Find her on Twitter @lizkimbrough_

FEEDBACK: Use this form to send a message to the author of this post. If you
want to post a public comment, you can do that at the bottom of the page.

Article published by Lizkimbrough
Animals, Bats, Biodiversity, Conservation, Endangered Species, Environment,
Forests, Green, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Protected Areas, Rainforests,
Rediscovered Species, Tropical Forests, Wildlife
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