Chiroptera em área urbana de Caxias do Sul/RS

Abstract

The frequent occurrence of bats in urban areas has resulted in a greater coexistence of human beings with the group, in view of the use of buildings by the chiropterofauna as a refuge area. The plurality of these species and their habits make the order Chiroptera in Brazil one of the richest faunas among tropical countries, mainly within the Atlantic Forest Biome. The municipality of Caxias do Sul is among the cities that participate in the Rabies Prophylaxis Program, which aims to monitor and act in a prophylactic and active manner so that the rabies virus does not become actively circulating among the population and other animals, whether they wild or pet. However, there is a data gap regarding the identification of species seen/collected by the public agency that are later sent for analysis. Therefore, the present work aimed to identify and spatially georeference the bats collected by the Environmental Surveillance of the municipality. The sampling period took place from December 2021 to May 2022, with a total of 5 species recorded in 20 different neighborhoods, namely: Molossus molossus (Pallas, 1766), Tadarida brasiliensis (I. Geoffroy, 1824), Eptesicus diminutus (Osgood, 1915), Molossus rufus (E. Geoffroy, 1805). In short, more specific studies with bats in the city of Caxias do Sul are necessary to understand a greater distribution of species and to record possible species that were not inventoried in the present study due to the fact that the inventoried data actively depend on population information. [resumo fornecido pelo autor]