Jasmina KOTNIK: New record of Bechstein's bat Myotis bechsteiniiin NE Slovenia / FIELD NOTE
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New record of Bechstein's bat Myotis bechsteinii (Kuhl, 1817) in NE Slovenia
Nova najdba velikouhega netopirja Myotis bechsteinii (Kuhl, 1817) v SV Sloveniji
Jasmina KOTNIK, Cven 1c, SI-9240 Ljutomer;
E-mail: jasmina.kotnik89@gmail.com
In September 2015, I received, as a member of SDPVN - Slovenian Association for Bat Research and Conservation, a phone call from Barbara Makoter, informing me of a dead bat found glued to flypaper in a vineyard (Fig. 1) located in the village of Desnjak (lat. 46.4885 °N, long. 16.1282 °E, 300 m a. s. l), SW of Ljutomer in NE Slovenia. Desnjak is a small settlement of about 130 inhabitants in the wine growing hills of Slovenske gorice, where villages are comprised of scattered houses, interrupted by vineyards, cultivated fields and forest residues. Eight flypapers were set in the vineyard on 18. 9. 2015, and the bat was found there next day - it had stuck on one of the flypapers during the night from 18. to 19. 9. 2015.
I soon received the carcass, which turned out to be an adult or subadult male of Bechstein's bat Myotis bechsteinii (Kuhl, 1817). This species has already been found as a victim of flypaper trap in Slovenia, specifically in an orchard in N Slovenia in July 2008 (Lampic & Kodba 2008). In our case, it is the location that makes the finding interesting. Generally, the Bechstein's bat is strongly associated with old deciduous forest stands, which contain many potential roosts in tree holes or trunk crevices (Presetnik & Govedic 2006, Dietz et al. 2009) and present a foraging habitat that is, according to Kerth et al. (2001), less than 1 km from the roost. We can assume that patches of very fragmented forest stands around the finding site offer minimum conditions at least for the species' occasional occurrence in the area. Since the bat was found in autumn, when the time comes for mating and migration between summer and winter roosts (Dietz et al. 2009), only further finds (especially pregnant or lactating females) will provide proof of the species' permanent residency in the area.
This finding of Bechstein's bat is interesting also due to the scarcity of data on this species in Slovenia (Koselj 2009). Our record is the second observation of this species in NE Slovenia; the first concerns an individual from Grad Castle in the region of Goričko (36.5 km north of Desnjak), where a female was found hibernating in the cellars in 2005 (Presetnik et al. 2009). The closest observation of this species comes from the village of Hruščica near Varaždin in Croatia (22 km SE from Desnjak), where one individual was found in a cellar in September 1989 (Pavlinic et al. 2010). Our observation therefore fills in the gap in the knowledge on distribution of Bechstein's bat in NE Slovenia.
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank Barbara Makoter for her phone call and handover of the carcass. I'm also grateful to Primož Presetnik from the Centre for Cartography of Fauna and Flora for providing some literature and comments on the paper manuscript.
References
Dietz C., Helversen O. von, Nill D. (2009): Bats of Britain, Europe and Northwest Africa. A & C Black Publishers, London, 400 pp.
Kerth G., Wagner M., Konig B. (2001): Roosting together, foraging apart: information transfer about food is unlikely to explain sociality in female Bechstein's bats (Myotis bechsteinii). Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 50(3): 283-291.
Koselj K. (2009): Velikouhi netopir - Myotis bechsteinii (Kuhl, 1817). In: Presetnik P., Koselj K., Zagmajster M. (Eds.), Atlas netopirjev (Chiroptera) Slovenije, Atlas of bats (Chiroptera) of Slovenia. Atlas faunae et florae Sloveniae 2. Center za kartografijo favne in flore, Miklaž na Dravskem polju, pp. 64-65.
Lampič P., Kodba A. (2008): Reševanje netopirja Fadila. Glej, netopir! 5(1): 46-47.
Pavlinic I., Dakovič M., Tvrtkovič N. (2010): The atlas of Croatian bats, Part I. Nat. Cro. 19(2): 295-337.
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Jasmina KOTNIK: New record of Bechstein's bat Myotis bechsteinii in NE Slovenia / FIELD NOTE
Presetnik P., Govedič M. (2006): Možnosti pri monitoringu pestrosti netopirjev in njihovih populacijskih trendov v Sloveniji. In: Hladnik D. (Ed.), Monitoring gospodarjenja z gozdom in gozdnato krajino. Studia forestalia Slovenica: strokovna in znanstvena dela. Oddelek za gozdarstvo in obnovljive vire, Biotehniška fakulteta, Ljubljana, pp. 261-275.
Presetnik P., Koselj K., Zagmajster M. (Eds.) (2009): Atlas netopirjev (Chiroptera) Slovenije, Atlas of bats (Chiroptera) of Slovenia. Atlas faunae et florae Sloveniae 2. Center za kartografijo favne in flore, Miklavž na Dravskem polju, 152 pp.
Figure 1. Bechstein's bat (Myotis bechsteinii) stuck to flypaper set in vineyard in the village of Desnjak in NE Slovenia (photo: Jasmina Kotnik).
Slika 1. Velikouhi netopir (Myotis bechsteinii), prilepljen na muholovec pri vasi Desnjak v SV Sloveniji (foto: Jasmina Kotnik).
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