First record of Vampyrodes caraccioli ( Thomas , 1889 ) ( Chiroptera : Phyllostomidae ) for the state of Paraná , and range extension to southern region of Brazil

The present note reports the first record of Vampyrodes caraccioli in Parana state, southern Brazil, based on an adult male specimen collected in the “Reserva Particular do Patrimonio Natural Salto Morato”, on the north coast of the state, extending 301 km in the known austral distribution of the species.

The study area is located in the municipality of Guaraqueçaba, northern coast of Paraná state (25°09′98″ S and 48°17′90″ W), being inserted in the Reserve Natural Salto Morato (RNSM), at an average altitude of 60 m above the sea level (Figure 1).The RNSM occupies a total area of 2,340 ha and is inserted into a large continuous forest that corresponds to the Environmental Protection Area of Guaraqueçaba, covering an area of 282,444 ha (Straube and Urben-Filho 2005).According to phytogeographical criteria, the study area falls within the Atlantic Forest Biome, in the sub-formation Dense Tropical Rain Forest Submontane (Veloso et al. 1992).According to Koeppen climate classification, the region's climate is type Cfa.According to data obtained in the Salto Morato's weather station, the average monthly rainfall is around 80 mm and average monthly temperature of 20.6°C.
On 25 November 2013, at 00:12 h, an adult male V. caraccioli was captured (Figures 2 and 3) in a mist-net installed at the understory level.This individual was collected and incorporated into the mammal collection of Universidade Federal do Paraná-UFPR, under the number DZUP-CCMZ 1956.Morphological measurements of the collected specimen were obtained with a caliper (Table 1), following the description of Velazco and Simmons (2011).Taxonomic identification was based in Lim and Engstrom (2001), Gardner (2008), Aguirre et al. (2009), and Velazco and Simmons (2011).At the genus level, the following diagnostic characters were observed: (1) presence of facial and dorsal stripes; (2) dorsal stripe beginning at head; (3) incisors 2/2; (4) molars 2/3; (5) height of first incisor much less than height of first molar; (6) second upper molar equal in size or smaller than first; (7) presence of nasal bones, and (8) greatest length of skull > 24 mm.At the species level, the following diagnostic characters were observed: (1) general size smaller than described for V. major (Table 1); (2) third metacarpal greater than the fifth metacarpal; (3) inverted U-shaped posterior margin of the uropatagium, with (4) dense and short hair (< 2 mm) along the trailing edge; (5) parietal foramina well separated from nuchal crest; (6) low developed groove present between occipital condyle and paracondylar process; (7)    Vampyrodes caraccioli had its first record in the Atlantic Forest biome obtained in the state of Bahia (Faria 2006), andVelazco et al. 2010 expanded its known distribution southward to São Paulo.With the present record, the first for the state of Paraná, we extend in 301 km this southern limit.
Vampyrodes caraccioli has a disjunct distribution, occurring in Amazonia and Atlantic Forest, with no record in the dry diagonal of South America (Caatinga and Cerrado) (Gardner 2008;Velazco et al. 2010;Velazco and Simmons 2011).This disjunct distribution is in agreement with the postulated association of V. caraccioli to rainforests (Willis et al. 1990), and it could reflect a vicariance event, although molecular analyzes by Velazco and Simmons (2011) suggest that the two populations belong to the same species.Given the rarity/low abundance of V. caraccioli in both Amazonia and Atlantic Forest (Lim and Engstrom 2001;Martins et al. 2006;Lourenço et al. 2011), however, it is still possible that the species actually occurs in the dry diagonal.
In the Atlantic Forest, V. caraccioli has been recorded mostly in large forest fragments, such as the Una Biological Reserve, in Bahia (11,400 ha; Faria 2006), Serra do Mar State Park, in São Paulo (315,999 ha; Velazco et al. 2010), and Area of Environmental Protection Guaraqueçaba (288,444 ha; present study).These data may indicate that, unlike other Stenodermatinae, which are abundant in fragmented environments, V. caraccioli does not have great ecological plasticity, which could explain its low abundance in the Atlantic Forest environments.However, this hypothesis should be analyzed with caution, since the other species of the genus, V. major, can be considered locally abundant (Estrada and Coates-Estrada 2002).Furthermore, several species are rare when near the limit of their geographic distribution, which may explain the low abundance of V. caraccioli, at least in southern Brazil.
Some measurements of the specimen sampled in Paraná state (GLS, ZB, M1-M1, M2-M2, and COH-see Table 1) showed larger values than the recorded range for the species throughout its distribution, and GLS and COH were higher even when compared to the variation observed in V. major (Velazco and Simmons 2011-see table 1).Although we examined only a single specimen, these data may indicate that V. caraccioli shows a clinal variation in size, as observed in other species (e.g., Bornholdt et al. 2008;Tavares and Velazco 2010;Garbino 2011;Moratelli and Oliveira 2011).Studies examining a larger number of specimens are necessary to confirm or rule out this hypothesis (Scultori et al. 2009b).
According to Miretzki (2003), the coastal region of the state of Paraná, which includes the area of the present study, has a low priority for conducting inventories.Recent studies in the region, however, have revealed a series of records relevant to the knowledge of the bat fauna of Paraná (Scultori et al. 2009a(Scultori et al. , 2009b(Scultori et al. , 2009c;;Passos et al. 2010).Overall, despite increasing knowledge about the distribution and occurrence of species, no Brazilian biome can be considered as satisfactorily sampled in relation to the bat fauna (Bernard et al. 2011).Baseline studies are still important in the country, even in areas considered to be of low priority, as in the present study.At least 69 bat species can be now recognized as having confirmed records in the state of Paraná (Bianconi et al. 2009;Scultori et al. 2009b;Passos et al. 2010, Moratelli et al. 2011).
Acknowledgments: To the "O Boticario Foundation for Nature Protection" for financial support to the project (Partnership term 0105-20112-BR); to employees of RPPN Salto Morato for logistical support during the sampling completion; to Luana Pereira for idealizing the manuscript; to CNPQ for the Doctoral scholarship to F. Carvalho and for the productivity scholarship to F.C. Passos (303757/2012-4); to CAPES for the masters scholarship to V. Mottin.Table 1.Measurements (in mm) of specimens of Vampyrodes caraccioli from the states of Paraná, southern Brazil (present study), and São Paulo, southeastern Brazil (Velazco et al. 2010), and data (min.-max.)for V. caraccioli and V. major from several localities (Velazco and Simmons 2011).

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Map showing locality records of Vampyrodes caraccioli in the states of São Paulo (˜) (Velazco et al. 2010) and Paraná («) (present study).The Brazilian map highlights the localization of these states (light gray) and shows others (dark gray) with confirmed records based on Velazco et al. (2010) and Alho et al. (2011).

Figure 3 .
Figure 3. Dorsal, ventral, and lateral views of the skull and also dorsal and lateral views of the mandible of Vampyrodes caraccioli (DZUP-CCMZ 1956).