First record of a Wrinkle-lipped Free-tailed Bat Chaerephon plicatus Buchannan, 1800 (Mammalia: Chiroptera: Molossidae) colony in Sri Lanka, with notes on echolocation calls and taxonomy

Abstract

In this paper we report the discovery of a colony of Wrinkle-lipped Free-tailed Bat Chaerephon plicatus for the first time in Sri Lanka, and a record of this species after a lapse of 20 years. C plicatus has been recorded twice previously, in 1935 and 1997, but a roosting colony has not been recorded before. In May 2016, a colony containing about 300 C plicatus was observed in a vertical cleft of the rock supporting Sigiriya fortress, a popular historical tourist destination. Four bats were captured during their evening emergence using mist nets. Recording of echolocation calls showed them to be similar to those previously documented for this species in being narrow bandwidth with shallow frequency modulation and low peak frequency (24.9-30.3 kHz), with average call duration of 7.7milliseconds (ms). The forearm length range (45.2-49.1 mm) of captured specimens corresponds to the specimen recorded in 1997 in Sri Lanka and with those recorded in Vietnam and Myanmar. The discovery of a colony of C plicatus in Sri Lanka provides a basis for future studies of the biology and taxonomy of this species.