DRBNats, 9 August 2024

The speaker, Conservation Council of Western Australia (CCWA) Kelly Sheldrick, shared her extensive understanding of bats, including some of her citizen science statistics on monitoring southwest Western Australia bats. She primarily focused on ecological roles and conservation. The key aspects of her work covered changing perceptions by debunking bat misconceptions.

Bats are Australia’s only true flying mammals (20% of mammal species), and are found on every continent except Antarctica. She thrilled the audience with the photographs and replica bats to illustrate the diverse sizes. Explaining echolocation brought out the fact that bats have good eyesight. Additionally, some bat species, such as our Long-eared Bat species (Nyctophilus spp.), have good hearing. They are so good that they can hear the wing beat of a moth and thus can choose not to use echolocation when foraging, making them particularly specialised in catching moths.

According to the Western Australian Museum Fauna list, we have forty-two species and seven families, increasing from 37 (Armstrong, 2018). Some have a very high risk of decline due to poor data collection or assumptions based on monitoring in habitats known for each bat type.

Sheldrick shared information on the following bats: Southern Forest (Vespadelus regulus) weighing 5 Grams, Gould’s Wattled Bat (Chalinolobus gouldii) that is adapted to urban life in the hills and Perth. The Western False Pipistrelle (Friends of Forrestdale, 2013) is nearly threatened on the IUCN Red List and prefers old mature forest, which is itself under threat. The are three species of Long-eared Bats: two endemics to the southwest, the Holt (Nyctophilus holtorum) and the Western Long-eared Bat (Nyctophilus major), and the third is the Lesser Long-eared Bat (Nyctophilus geoffroyi) which, much like the Gould’s Wattled Bat is widespread across Australia, much like the Gould’s Wattled Bat. Finally, there is the Chocolate Wattle Bat (Chalinolobus morio) and the White-striped free-tailed Bat (Austronomous australis). Most people can hear the White-striped free-tailed Bat without the aid of a detector, and it’s one of the few bats in Australia that we know can migrate south in the cooler months. Due to this and the species’ high and fast flying behaviour, it is at risk of being impacted by wind turbines. 

The pilot citizen science project conducted in the summer of 2023-2024 assisted in collecting acoustic data and building capacity on bat knowledge.

How do we know what to listen for? 

“Bat research has increased in recent years due to technological improvements in recording their sounds. Bats use echolocation to locate their prey. Echolocation frequencies are different between species, and because producing the sound in the larynx is quite energy-sapping, they tend to coordinate it with a wingbeat. As they approach their prey, the number of calls increases to improve resolution, called a ‘feeding buzz.” (T. Hodge)

The data collected these different calls, echolocation, foraging, and social interactions, with not all seven bat types in the southwest Sheldrick shared being heard. As with most research, some conclusions can be drawn, and a pilot is a good start.

Kelly Sheldrick & Arlene Quinn

• Bat Monitoring Program CCWA
• Armstrong, Kyle N. 2018. “The current status of bats in Western Australia.” University Western Australia – UWA Specialised Zoological; kyle.armstrong@graduate.uwa.edu.au.
• Friends of Forrestdale. 2013. “The Amazing Life of Bats.” Photos: Southern Forest Bat and Lesser Long-eared Bat by Jesse Young; 06 10. Accessed 06 19, 2020. http://www.sercul.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/FOF_Bats.pdf.
• T. Hodge 30 March 2019  Bats—Our Locals and Their Ecology