Mesquite bugs, other insects, and a bat in the diet of pallid bats in southeastern Arizona

Abstract

The pallid bat (Antrozous pallidus) is a species of western North America, inhabiting ecoregions ranging from desert to oak and pine forest. They are primarily insectivorous predators on large arthropods that occasionally take small vertebrate prey, and are at least seasonally omnivorous in certain parts of their geographic range where they take nectar from cactus flowers and eat cactus fruit pulp and seeds. Until recently, mesquite bugs were primarily tropical-subtropical inhabitants of Mexico and Central America but have since occupied the southwestern United States where mesquite trees occur. Using a noninvasive method, we investigated the bats' diet at the Cienega Creek Natural Preserve, Arizona, by collecting food parts discarded beneath three night roosts in soil-piping cavities in a mesquite bosque. We also made phenological and behavioral observations of mesquite bugs, Thasus neocalifornicus, and their interactions with the mesquite trees. We determined that the bats discarded inedible parts of 36 species in 8 orders of mainly large-bodied and nocturnal insects below the night-roosts. In addition, one partial bat wing represents probable predation upon a phyllostomid bat, Choeronycteris mexicana. About 17 of the insect taxa are newly reported as prey for pallid bats, as is the bat C. mexicana. The majority of culled insect parts (88%) were from adult mesquite bugs. Mesquite bug nymphs did not appear in the culled insect parts. After breeding in late summer, when nighttime low temperatures dropped below 21 C, the adult bugs became immobile on the periphery of trees where they probably make easy prey for opportunistic foliage-gleaning pallid bats. Proximity of night-roosts to mesquite bug habitat probably also enhances the bats' exploitation of these insects in this location.