Rhinolophus Blasii
Photograph by Michael Curran and Mirjam Kopp
This is a Rhinolophus blasii from Mount Mabu in northern Mozambique. We spent 13 nights sampling in a remarkably intact montane rain forest. Although capture success was low, we recorded a very diverse yet even community of bats in this forest. In areas of West Africa, a similar pattern was observed in intact wild habitat: low levels of abundance but a highly diverse community.
About the Project
NGS/Waitt grantee Michael Curran and his team are documenting how Mozambique and Malawi forests are essential to their local, large bat communities. Using mist nets, canopy nets, harp traps and acoustic monitoring (recording ultrasonic bat calls using a bat detector), Curran has discovered that these forests support a very large proportion of the region’s bat diversity within a very small geographic area. Visiting eight sites across three mountains in Mozambique and Malawi, he and his team captured 245 bats representing about 27 species.
