Bat Predation on Sleeping Birds: A Novel Foraging Strategy for an Eavesdropping Specialist? |
Mary Heather B. Jingco1, Lauren Norwood1, Luisa F. G�mez-Feuillet1, M. May Dixon1,2, Jay J. Falk1,3, Logan S. James1,3, Rachel A. Page1. 1Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Gamboa, Col�n, Panama; 2Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, United States; 3Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, United States; 4Department of Integrative Biology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, |
Neotropical leaf-nosed bats from the family Phyllostomidae display a spectacularly broad diversity of diets. Among animal-eating phyllostomids, the fringe-lipped bat (Trachops cirrhosus) is a passive gleaner that relies primarily on prey-emitted sounds to locate prey. It hunts frogs by eavesdropping on mating calls, but also feeds on arthropods, reptiles, and other bat species. Observations of culled remains below roosts and fecal metabarcoding analyses revealed that these bats also consume diurnally active prey, including manakins and hummingbirds. We investigated the ability of T. cirrhosus to localize silent, motionless prey – sleeping birds – and assessed its efficacy as a bird and nest predator in artificial and natural settings. We investigated these questions in captive experiments by quantifying the behavioral responses of T. cirrhosus to mounts of bird species of varying size and to nests with eggs, and by installing trail cameras in known foraging areas provisioned with these same items in the wild. Our results not only provide context regarding bat foraging abilities, but also shed light on a relatively unexplored source of predation of small Neotropical birds. |