History and current state of bat fauna research in Cherkasy region, Ukraine with a review of actual records

Abstract

The article presents materials to the study of bats of Cherkasy region, Ukraine, based on collections of natural history and zoological museums of Ukraine and literature sources. Information on 11 bat species was collected by different scientists independently. Six species such as Daubenton's Bat (M. daubentonii), common noctule (N. noctula), Nathusius' pipistrelle (P. nathusii), serotine bat (E. serotinus), brown long-eared bat (P. auritus) and western barbastelle (B. barbastellus) are present in the collections of four museums (Zoological Museum of Kyiv National University; National Museum of Natural History NAS of Ukraine, Kyiv; State Natural History Museum; Zoological Museum of Moscow University). The other five species such as Natterer's bat (M. nattereri), greater noctule bat (N. lasiopterus), lesser noctule (N. leisleri), common pipistrelle (P. pipistrellus), and parti-coloured bat (V. murinus) were noted in the literature by various authors, who described these sporadic findings. Most of these findings are fragmentary. The state of the study of the region’s bat fauna could not be described as sufficient at that time. Research on bats in the study area can be divided into four periods: I, the second half of the 19th century (Kessler's work), during which the first conditional information about bats appeared; II, the beginning and the end of the 20th century, when the first fragmentary data concerning the bat fauna of Cherkasy region began to appear limited by sporadic findings and accompanied by collection specimens (works by Migulin, Abelentsev, Sologor and others); III, the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century — a new phase of studies accompanied by the emergence of remote research methods (detector census) and other humane methods allowing to study bats without removing them from the natural habitat (works by Zagorodniuk, Ruzhilenko, Bilushenko); IV, from the beginning of the 21st century and to our time — currently there are 14 species of bats in the territory of Cherkasy region, Ukraine. They belong to seven genera of the family Vespertilionidae, one species of which — the greater noctule bat (N. lasiopterus) — is known only from literature sources. Two species such as Kuhl’s pipistrelle (P. kuhlii) and the grey long-eared bat (P. austriacus) are recorded the first time in the region. The presence of the other abovementioned species was confirmed the current research.

Keywords

• bats
• fauna
• cherkasy region
• museum
• collections