Discovery of a cave as the day roost of a rarest fruit bat Latidens salimalii

Abstract

Salim Ali's fruit bat Latidens salimalii is one of the three rarest bats in the world. It is endemic to Tamil Nadu in the southern part of India. Even though it was repeatedly mist-netted in the High Wavy Mountains, whether it roosts in foliage or trees or buildings during daytime, similar to sympatric fruit bats, was previously unknown. We report here for the first time that this species roosts in a cave in the High Wavy Mountains. Most of the individuals roosted in clusters in the darkest areas of the cave. We mist-netted 24 individuals during their evening outflights and confirmed their identity. The distance between the day roost and the only known night roost of L. salimalii was less than 1 km.