Little free-tailed bat
Kingdom
Phylum
Subphylum
Class
Order
Family
Genus
SPECIES
Chaerephon pumilus
Weight
11
0
goz
g oz 
Length
252
10
mminch
mm inch 
Wingspan
255
10
mminch
mm inch 

The little free-tailed bat (Chaerephon pumilus ) is a species of the genus Chaerephon in the family Molossidae. It is widely distributed across Africa and islands around the continent.

No

Nocturnal

Ca

Carnivore

In

Insectivores

Te

Terrestrial

Po

Polygyny

Po

Polygamy

So

Social

No

Not a migrant

L

starts with

Appearance

The little free-tailed bat is one of the smallest species in the genus Chaerephon, and a total body length is measured from 54 to 102 mm. The ventral fur has lighter color than the dorsal fur, which is short and blackish-brown. Pale or white hairs are observed on the ventral surface where wings are connected to flanks, and both white-winged (north-eastern African species) and dark-winged (southern African species) types have been found. This species has round ears that are large for its head size. The small tragus of its ear, which is asymmetrically bilobed at the end, is covered by the large antitragus. A distinguishable forehead tuft is observed in males and it makes their outline recognizable during flight. This species shows great morphological variations in wing and pelage colors resulted in different taxonomic designations depending on its distributional ranges. To illustrate, the little free-tailed bat population found in Amani, Tanzania, has a longer forearm length on average than populations in southern Africa and Ghana and a higher wing loading than populations in South Africa.

Distribution

Geography

Little free-tailed bats occur across southern parts of the Arabian Peninsula, sub-Saharan Africa, and islands of the west Africa and east shores of Africa, such as Sno Tomé, Bioko, Zanzibar, Pemba, the Comoros, the Seychelles, and Madagascar. Habitats of little free-tailed bats are various from rainforest regions in the south to semiarid areas in the north, which are typically open foraging regions. These bats are found in savannas of Sudan, Guinea, and Zambia, in the Cape Macchia Zone, and more arid countries in the north. Also, they tend to prefer low veld areas in Zimbabwe, but they are never found on the plateau higher than 1,000 meter altitude.

Climate zones

Habits and Lifestyle

Lifestyle
Seasonal behavior

Diet and Nutrition

The little free-tailed bat is insectivorous and feeds on a wide range of small insects. Coleoptera (beetles), Hemiptera (true bugs) and Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies) are major prey for this species. During both summer and winter seasons, they mainly prey on Hemiptera and Lepidoptera, while Diptera (flies) notably contributes to the diet only in the winter and Coleoptera is common only in the summer. However, depending on distributional ranges, types of prey can be varied considerably. For instance, a population found in Amani, Tanzania, mainly feeds on Blattodea (cockroaches) with Hemiptera as the only other order to account for more than 10% of the diet. In South Africa, even though prey is equally available during both dry and rainy seasons, mean size of prey tends to increase in the rainy season.

Mating Habits

MATING BEHAVIOR
PREGNANCY DURATION
60 to 72 days
BABY CARRYING
1 to 2

Population

References

1. Little free-tailed bat Wikipedia article - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_free-tailed_bat
2. Little free-tailed bat on The IUCN Red List site - https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/67362271/22018113

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