image: Male C. senex from Costa Rica view more
Credit: Marco Tschapka
The first behavioral observations of wrinkle-faced bats in their natural habitat reveal that this elusive species uses the rarest form of bat courtship behavior, according to a study published November 11 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Bernal Rodríguez-Herrera of the Universidad de Costa Rica, and colleagues.
Centurio senex is a wrinkle-faced bat found in Mexico, Central America, and northern South America. Interestingly, this species shows a distinct sexual dimorphism: Adult males have a fold of skin under the chin that can be raised to cover the lower part of the face like a mask, suggesting that it might be used during courtship behavior. But this species has rarely been studied, so little is known about its behavior and natural history. In the new study, the researchers report the first observations of echolocation and mating behavior of C. senex. The authors analyzed synchronized audio and video recordings from an aggregation of males located on 53 perches in Costa Rica over a period of six weeks.
This species appears to use lek courtship, in which females choose mates from clusters of sexually displaying presumably territorial males. Among mammals, lek courtship is known to be used by only 12 species, mainly seals and hoofed mammals. When females approached, the perched males beat their wings and emitted very loud, low-frequency whistling calls. The males lowered their masks immediately before copulation, then sang enthusiastically and raised their masks again after mating.
According to the authors, future encounters with C. senex may close some of the current gaps in knowledge on the behavior of one of the most iconic bats of the Neotropics.
The authors add: "[Centurio senex] 'court with the mask on'...the mating system of the most enigmatic bat species in the Neotropics appears to be lek, a rarely recorded mating system in bats."
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Citation:
Rodríguez-Herrera B, Sánchez-Calderón R, Madrigal-Elizondo V, Rodríguez P, Villalobos J, Hernández E, et al. (2020) The masked seducers: Lek courtship behavior in the wrinkle-faced bat Centurio senex (Phyllostomidae). PLoS ONE 15(11): e0241063.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0241063
Funding:
The owner of the study site, Hotel Villa Blanca, provided support in the form of salaries for authors J.V. and E.H., but did not have any role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of these authors are defined in the 'author contributions' section. The authors also want to acknowledge the long-standing cooperation between UCR and UULM, which is supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). GG was funded by the Heinrich Böll Foundation. MT acknowledges the financial support of the University of Ulm.
Competing Interests:
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. The owner of the study site, Hotel Villa Blanca, provided support in the form of salaries for authors J.V. and E.H. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.
In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS ONE:
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0241063
Journal
PLoS ONE