Black Mastiff Bat
The Black Mastiff Bat is a reasonably common resident in the Ibera Marshes. We often pick up their echolocation calls on our bat detectors. This one below was caught in a mist net at a neighbour’s property which had some old buildings. There was evidence of a large population of these bats in this location. Sadly the owner destroyed the roost in 2016 in the springtime, possibly causing the death of juveniles. As a result, we now get several of these species at Reserva Don Luis although we have not discovered them roosting in our roofs yet.
It is a member of the family Molossidae and has a free tail which is typical of this family. The ears are medium in size with a mushroom shaped tragus. The snout is slightly dog-like.
It is quite a large bat in comparison to other insectivorous bats and weights around 30g. The colour variation is quite dramatic – we found yellow specimens as well as red, brown and black ones.
Mating takes place in the autumn and the female bears one young in the Argentine spring. The male is larger than the female in this species.
Yellow Form of Black Mastiff Bat
