Occurrence of Phyllostomus elongatus ( Geoffroy St .-Hilaire , 1810 ) ( Chiroptera , Phyllostomidae ) in the Cerrado of Tocantins and a compilation of its Brazilian distribution

The genus Phyllostomus Lacépède, 1799, is represented by four species, all of which occur in Brazil (Williams and Genoways 2008): Phyllostomus discolor Wagner, 1843, Phyllostomus elongatus (Geoffroy St.-Hilaire, 1810), Phyllostomus hastatus (Pallas, 1767), and Phyllostomus latifolius (Thomas, 1901). Phyllostomus elongatus is endemic of South America and distributed from Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and the Guyanas to the southeast of Brazil (Baker et al. 1988; Williams and Genoways 2008). P. elongatus occurs east of the Andes, in lowlands, and its distribution is associated with tropical rainforests (Williams and Genoways 2008). Furthermore, an isolated population of this species is known to the west of the Andes, occurring in Colombia and Ecuador (Williams and Genoways 2008). This species occupies primary and secondary forests, disturbed areas, and karst environments (Fischer et al. 1997, Simmons and Voss 1998, Fregonezi et al. 2013). P. elongatus can form harems of more than 10 individuals or colonies composed of up to 50 non-reproductive males (Fregonezi et al. 2013). P. elongatus can be considered omnivorous like the other species of the genus, since their diet includes insects, nectar, fruits and small vertebrates (Tuttle 1970, Reis and Peracchi 1987, Fischer et al. 1997, Bernard 2002). In Brazil, P. elongatus has been registered in four biomes: the Amazon (Handley 1967; Piccinini 1974; Marques 1985; Bernard et al. 2011a), the Atlantic Forest (Vieira 1942; Faria et al. 2006; Faria and Baumgarten 2007), the Pantanal (Bordignon and França 2009; Alho et al. 2011), and the Cerrado (Sousa et al. 2013). The first record assigned to the Brazilian Cerrado, the type-locality for the species (Rio Branco, Mato Grosso), is, in fact, a region that combines a set of different landscapes, characterized by presenting transitional vegetation between the Pantanal and the Cerrado (Eva et al. 2002). Records of this species in the Caatinga biome were mentioned by Abstract: The lesser spear-nosed bat, Phyllostomus elongatus, is endemic of South America and in Brazil this species is recorded in Amazon, Atlantic Forest, Cerrado, and Pantanal. Here, we present a new record for P. elongatus in the savanna of central Brazil, known as the Cerrado. In January 2012, five individuals of P. elongatus were captured and recorded in a limestone cave in the Aurora do Tocantins county, Tocantins State. Phyllostomus elongatus has already been registered in 32 locations and 14 Brazilian states, and their records appear to be associated with humid habitats and forested areas. 1 Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Departamento de Zoologia. Av. Pasteur, 458, Sala 501, Urca, CEP 22290-240, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil. 2 Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia e Evolução. Av. São Francisco Xavier 524, Maracanã, CEP 20550-013, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil. * Corresponding author. E-mail: robertoleonan@gmail.com Roberto Leonan Morim Novaes 1*, Renan de França Souza 2, Saulo Felix 1, Gabriella Jacob 1, Cristal Sauwen 1 and Leonardo dos Santos Avilla 1 Occurrence of Phyllostomus elongatus (Geoffroy St.-Hilaire, 1810) (Chiroptera, Phyllostomidae) in the Cerrado of Tocantins and a compilation of its Brazilian distribution

Occurrence of Phyllostomus elongatus (Geoffroy St.-Hilaire, 1810) (Chiroptera, Phyllostomidae) in the Cerrado of Tocantins and a compilation of its Brazilian distribution Marinho-Filho and Sazima (1998), however, this data was actually from an Atlantic Forest region in the northeastern Brazil (Vieira 1953(Vieira , 1955Souza-Lopes 1978;Souza et al. 2004;Nogueira et al. 2007). Thus, here we present the first record of P. elongatus for the central Cerrado and also for the Tocantins State, Brazil.
We recorded P. elongatus during a bat survey in a karstic area of the Aurora do Tocantins municipality, Southeast Tocantins State, Northern Brazil. The site has several karstic limestone complexes, each with dozens of caves. This karstic complex is inserted into a mosaic landscape composed of large remnants of the Neotropical savanna and farms with cattle ranching and maize, cassava, rice, and soybeans plantations. Aurora do Tocantins presents typical vegetation of the Cerrado sensu strictu, with enclaves of gallery forest (known as Cerradão, in Portuguese) in areas near the limestone massifs.
We conducted eight nights of bat surveys, with five nights consisting of twelve hour surveys (18:00-06:00 h) and three nights of six hour surveys (18:00-00:00h) using ten mist-nets (Zootech® 9 x 3 m, mesh: 20 mm), totalizing 21,260 m².h of sampling effort (Straube and Bianconi 2002). The mist-nets were placed (1) at cave entrances (6,390 m².h); (2) from a distance of 15 meters to cave entrances (6,380 m².h); (3) in edges, trails, and glades of Cerrado fragments (6,380 m².h); and, (4) around artificial ponds (2,110 m².h). Captured individuals were marked with a perforation-code in the dactilopatagium (Bonaccorso and Smythe 1972) and they were released afterwards at the same location of their capture sites. Some individuals were collected and deposited in the mammalian collection of the Museu Nacional do Rio de Janeiro (MN78389, MN78390, MN78385), which was authorized by the SIS-BIO/IBAMA (4028-1/28717). We followed the guidelines of Sikes et al. (2011) for handling the animals. Individuals were identified using the taxonomic characters proposed by Simmons and Voss (1998), Lim and Engstrom (2001), Reis et al. (2007Reis et al. ( , 2013. The compilation of the distribution of P. elongatus in Brazil was made through records obtained from the scientific literature (see Reis et al. 2007, Williams andGenoways 2008).
Five individuals of Phyllostomus elongatus ( Figure 1) were captured in areas around the caves Gruta dos Moura and Gruta do Urso (12°34′ 53″ S and 46°30′ 59″ W, ca. 400 m.a.s.l.) during a bat survey in Aurora do Tocantins, Tocantins State, northern Brazil. P. elongatus represented 0.96% of a total of 518 captures of 30 species. Four individuals were captured as they were leaving the Gruta dos Moura cave during the first hours after sundown. Another individual of P. elongatus was captured in a gallery forest area about one hour before dawn (Table 1).
According to Nogueira et al. (2007), Phyllostomus elongatus is a medium-sized bat, with a total body length between 99 and 115 millimeters (mm), and forearm between 61 and 71 mm. Additionally, P. elongatus has round-edged ears that are longer than its head length, which differentiates the species from its congeners. Furthermore, P. elonga-tus′ s calcaneus is longer than its foot length, which is an important characteristic that distinguishes it from P. hastatus and P. discolor, with P. elongatus having the longest calcaneus. In addition, P. elongatus can be distinguished from P. latifolius by its forearm length and for having a white spot on the tip of the wings (Koopman 1994).
Captures were conducted in a gallery forest that has similar physiognomic and abiotic characteristics to rainforests, such as high humidity and a canopy that can reach up to 12m in height (Oliveira-Filho and Ratter 2002).
Phyllostomus elongatus has been recorded in 32 Brazilian localities, distributed in 14 states, including the new record for the State of Tocantins (Table 2, Figure 2). Most of the records occur in the Amazon rainforest and the At-   lantic Forest. Additionally, there is also a record for the Pantanal on an area of semideciduous forest (Bordignon and França 2009). The previous record of P. elongatus for the Cerrado was captured in a gallery forest in the transition between the Cerrado and Amazonia (Sousa et al. 2013). The compilation and revision of the geographic distribution of P. elongatus suggest that this species is more frequent on forested habitats with higher humidity. Williams and Genoways (2008) made a distribution review of P. elongatus noting the possibility of occurrence of this species in the Cerrado of Central Brazil, however the authors did not confirm its occurrence in this region.
Studies on the bat fauna of the Cerrado are very recent; the first ones were made in the early 1990′ s (Aguiar and Zortéa 2008). Although knowledge about the diversity of bats in this biome is still limited and the information about the species distribution in the Cerrado is incipient (Bernard et al. 2011b), this biome presents a high bat diversity (Marinho-Filho 1996, Zortéa andAlho 2008). In addition, bat surveys are lacking or poorly conducted for many areas of the Brazilian Cerrado, including the state of Tocantins (Bernard et al. 2011b, which indicates that new species of bats can still be recorded for this biome. on the performed activities; for Ruby Malzoni for extensive revision and correction; for anonymous reviewers and Paúl Velazco for their valuable suggestions.