Recent surveys of bats from the Andaman Islands, India: diversity, distribution, and echolocation characteristics

We studied the chiropteran diversity of Andaman Islands between July 2012 and January 2016 from 38 different localities spread throughout the islands. Our surveys revealed the presence of 17 species of bats. One species — lesser bamboo bat Tylonycteris pachypus — reported earlier could not be found during the present study. Our study adds four new species records (Andersen's roundleaf bat Hipposideros pomona, diadem roundleaf bat Hipposideros diadema, Indian pipistrelle Pipistrellus coromandra, and greater bamboo bat Tylonycteris robustula) for the Andaman Islands. A brief review of each species including details on its distribution (earlier and present), and external and craniodental measurements is provided. We also provide a database of echolocation calls for the Islands' echolocating bat fauna, and confirm the reliability of acoustic monitoring as a method to noninvasively document chiropteran diversity there. This database allows comparisons with taxa from the mainland that are currently considered conspecific, but which show acoustic divergence, and deserve further taxonomic study.