296.

Golden-tipped Bat

Phoniscus papuensis

French: Kérivoule papoue / German: Papua-Trompetenohr / Spanish: Fonisco de Papua

Taxonomy. Kerivoula papuensis Dobson, 1878,

“Port Moresby [Central Province], New Guinea [= Papua New Guinea].”

Phoniscus papuensis is occasionally still included under Kerivoula . Monotypic.

Distribution. Biak I, E New Guinea, Bismarck Archipelago (New Britain I), and E Australia in E Queensland and E New South Wales.

Descriptive notes. Head-body 41-5 53 mm, tail 36-7-42- 3 mm, ear 13.-916- 5 mm, hindfoot 7-11 mm, forearm 34-6-40- 3 mm; weight 5-3-11- 2 g. Pelage is long and curly. Dorsal pelage is dark brown, with bright golden frosting (hairs tipped with bright gold) that extends along wing, leg, and tail bones and abundantly onto uropatagium; venteris a little lighter and grayer, with pale gray-brown hairs and white tips. Bare skin is brown. Muzzle is narrow, with conspicuously pointed nose that overhangs lower jaw. Ears are funnel-shaped and have very long, straight, and distinctly white tragus with sharply pointed tip and basal notch on posterior edge. Tail is very long, and calcar is long, strong, and curved backward; wings are attached to bases of toes and are abnormally large for the size of the Golden-tipped Bat, which allows a high degree ofagility. Crown ofskull is highly domed. C' is long and sheathed into pocket in lower lip when mouth is closed, canines have longitudinal groove, and I, is reduced compared with IL,

Habitat. Primarily rainforests with well-developed overstories of eucalyptus and brushbox and lacking developed subcanopies and also tall open forests, dry and wet sclerophyll forests, riparian forests dominated by Casuarina (Casuarinaceae), and coastal Melaleuca (Myrtaceae) forests, and inside houses at edges of residential areas from sea level up to elevations of ¢. 1300 m.

Food and Feeding. Golden-tipped Bats are very specialized to feed on orb-weaving spiders. They typically forage in a 2-km radius inside rainforest gullies or various vegetation cluttered habitats where orb-weaving spiders are most common. They are very maneuverable fliers and can to hover in flight, which might be advantageous when foraging for spiders. Spiders make up 99% of diets in most studies that analyzed stomach contents and fecal samples throughout the year. Freshly eaten spiders in stomach samples were fairly intact, suggesting that they are sucked dry before soft abdomens were swallowed. Small quantities of insects also were occasionally found in stomachs and feces, including beetles, moths, and traces offlies and true bugs. Balls of spider webs have been reported in fecal samples.

Breeding. In Australia, males have enlarged testes in February-April (one record in September near Cairns, Queensland). Most females captured in November in Australia are pregnant, and one young is born in November—January. Lactating females were captured in Australia in December—February; by January-February, females stopped lactating and weaned young, and thefirst volant young appeared. Each year, c¢.5% of females did not bred. In New Guinea, a pregnant female was caught in mid-May.

Activity patterns. In Australia, Golden-tipped Bats appear to roost most often in abandoned nests of yellow-throated scrubwrens (Sericornis citreogularis) and brown gerygones (Gerygone mouki), which are domed, made of bark fibers, moss, and lichen, and suspended from thin vines and twigs. They also roost in tree hollows and among leaves and epiphytes, and males are known to burrow under clumps of hanging epiphytic moss. All roosts have an entry hole that are made by the bat. In New Guinea, they are known to roost in dead palm fronds, dense foliage with orange to red leaves, and houses. Calls are very steep and long FM sweep, allowing fine detail and texture detection that are very importantto find spiders in webs without getting entangled.

Movements, Home range and Social organization. Golden-tipped Bats generally roost alone or in small groups and change roosts every 1-4 days, usually about every day. They do not travel far from roost to roost (average c. 350 m in Australia). During breeding season, females form maternity colonies of 5-20 females and young.

Status and Conservation. Classified as Least Concern on The IUCN Red List. The Goldentipped Batis difficult to find and poorly represented in museums; however, with the more recent use of harp traps,it is more commonly reported. It is widespread butis likely threatened by deforestation from logging and agriculture. Changesin fire regimes and predation from introduced predators (e.g. cats) are possible threats in Australia.

Bibliography. Bonaccorso (1998), Churchill (2008), Flannery (1995a, 1995b), Hill (1965b), Hutson, Schlitter, Csorba, Hall, Lunney & Hamilton (2008), Law & Chidel (2004), Lunney & Barker (1986), Rhodes (1995), Ryan (1965), Schulz (1995a, 1995b, 2000a, 2000b), Schulz & Eyre (2000), Schulz & Wainer (1997), Walton et al. (1992), Woodside et al. (2008).