Abstract

We studied the patterns of postnatal growth in a tropical insectivorous bat, Hipposideros speoris, under natural conditions in Tirunelveli, Southern India. The body mass and morphometric growth parameters of length of forearm, fingers, tail, tibia and condylobasal length were measured from ten young bats (5 males and 5 females) at 10 days intervals of time starting from neonatal stage to adult. At birth, young H. speoris were altricial and their mothers enshrouded them with their palagiopatagium until the pup’s age of 20 days. Clumsy flight of young bats observed after 40 days, and they became completely volant with steady flights at 50 days. Pups obtained 90% of mean sizes of length of condylobase, ear and thumb finger of postpartum females at the age of 30 days. This indicates a faster growth compared to the length of forearm that attained 90% of postpartum females only at 50 days. A linear regression equation was derived to predict the age of young H. speoris on the basis of length of forearm from 19.9 ± 0.5 mm to 47.8 ± 1.0 mm (1 to 50 days). Of all three models (Logistic, Gompertz and von Bertlanffy), the Logistic and Gompertz models best described the growth patterns of forearm length and body mass, respectively.

Keywords

Age estimation, Hipposideros speoris, Growth curve models, Postnatal development.

Received on 15/12/2017, Accepted on 03/01/2018, Published on 23/01/2018