The Occurrence and Distribution of the T\ibe-nosed Insectivorous Bat {Murina florium) in Australia C.I. Clague 1 , R.B. Coles 12 , O.J.Whybird 3 , H.J. Spencer 4 AND P. FLEMONS 5 1 Vision Touch and Hearing Research Centre, Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, The University of Queensland, St. Lucia QLD 4072, email:
[email protected] 2 Department of Physiology, The University of Sydney NSW 2006 3 Phoniscus Environmental Services, P.O. Box 9, Millaa Millaa QLD 4886 4 Cape Tribulation Tropical Research Station, PMB5, Cape Tribulation QLD 4873 5 Spatial Systems Research Unit, Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Research, Australian Museum, 6 College St., Sydney NSW 2000 Clague, C.I., Coles, R.B., Whybird, O.J., Spencer, H.J. and Flemons, P. (1999). The occur-rence and distribution of the tube-nosed insectivorous bat {Murina florium) in Australia. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 121, 175-191. A comparison of specimens (n=14) of the Tube-nosed Insectivorous bat, Murina flori-um, from the wet tropics (15°30'-19°20'S) and an outlying specimen from Cape York Peninsula, suggests that a single species exists in Australia. A total of 26 localities have been identified using capture records and acoustic detection (echolocation and social calls). Sites occur between 60-1 120 m above sea level, in rainforest or wet sclerophyll forests. A common feature at each site, or in close proximity (within 4 km), is the presence of mixed wet sclero-phyll forest or a close structural equivalent. BIOCLIM modelling was used to describe the climate variation between sites and predict a distribution. The climate profile suggests that M. florium prefers forested areas with the following key parameters (annual average): precipita-tion 1852 mm (range 1197-2574 mm), rainfall in the driest period 39 mm (range 20-59 mm), temperature range of 17.7°C (range 13.9-19.0°C), maximum temperature of the warmest peri-od 28.6°C (range 27.3-3 1°C). The predicted distribution of M. florium in the wet tropics is restricted to a relatively narrow, elongated band running approximately north-south. It corre-sponds to regions with a steep rainfall gradient, largely on the western side of mountainous areas and several plateaus, and encompasses the upland wet sclerophyll forests. Manuscript received 8 October 1999, accepted for publication 17 November 1999. KEYWORDS: Australia, bats, BIOCLIM, capture, climate, distribution, echolocation call, ecotone, Murina florium, rainforest, social call, tube-nosed insectivorous bat, wet sclerophyll, wet tropics. INTRODUCTION The microchiropteran bat Murina florium was described originally from a speci-men collected on the Isle of Flores in Indonesia by A.R. Wallace (Thomas 1908). Subsequently, M. florium has been found on numerous islands, largely to the east of Wallace's Line, as far as Papua New Guinea but records are sparse (Laurie and Hill 1954; Hill 1983; Koopman and Danforth 1989; Corbet and Hill 1992; Koopman 1993; Flannery 1995a, 1995b). M. florium was not discovered in Australia until 73 years after its description, when it was captured on Mount Baldy (17°17'S 145°25'E) at the western edge of the Atherton Tableland in north Queensland, during a national survey of rare and endangered bats sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund (Richards et al. 1982; Hall 1983). Then a few years later in 1986, a second locality was found nearby at Mt. Hypipamee National Park, from bats captured along a walking track (G.A. Hoye, pers. comm.; see Winter 1991). Unfortunately with only two known sites, Nix and Switzer (1991) were Proc. Linn. Soc. n.s.w., 121. 1999
Specimen codes extracted from OCR text.
BioStor
