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Gray Short-tailed Bat

Carollia subrufa
LC · Least concern Chiroptera Phyllostomidae
Size
5 to 6 cm
Weight
12 to 18 g
Activity
Nocturnal
Sociability
Colonies of Variable Size

Description

It is one of the several species of short-tailed fruitful cockroaches that until a few decades ago were all confused under the same name, until genetic studies revealed that the group hid several distinct lineages spread across tropical America. It lives in dry tropical forest and dirt dirt of a strain that goes from Mexico to the north of South America, a somewhat drier habitat than that preferred by other species related to more humid zones. Like the rest of cockroaches of its genre, it is mainly fed by fruit of rapidly growing pioneering plants, dispersing its seeds by the night-by-night sotobosque. Its field identification against other very similar species of the same genre is extremely difficult without capture and cranial examination.

How to identify it

Small-sized squirrels, gray brown fur, short fox with lance-shaped nasal leaf, and absence of external tail. Practically indistinguishable in the field from other species of the same gender with which it shares part of its area, so its safe identification requires capture and cranial measures.

Habitat and range

Tropical rainforest dry and drizzle, with less presence in wet forests than other species of the genre, from low lands to average mountain ranges.

Diet

Frugivorous, it feeds mainly on the fruit of piperaceas and other rapidly growing pioneering plants, complemented with nectar and occasional insect.

Behaviour

It forms colonies of variable size in caves and tree holes.It is of nighttime activity, with short and repeated forage flights over the subsoil.

Conservation

Their populations are generally considered stable in most of their distribution area.

Threats

Deforestation and transformation of dry rainforest by agricultural and livestock expansion in its distribution area.

Other accounts in Phyllostomidae

See all species accounts for bats · Full species index

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