Chiroptera, Blumenbach, 1779

Roque, André Luiz R. & Jansen, Ana Maria, 2014, Wild and synanthropic reservoirs of Leishmania species in the Americas, International Journal for Parasitology: Parasites and Wildlife 3 (3), pp. 251-262 : 258

4.7. Order Chiroptera

Bats are nocturnal mammals and the only able to fly (sometimes associated with seasonal migration), an important trait that can result in the dissemination of parasite species. Their dispersion capacity is due to the ability to do true flapping flight (apparently evolved differently among bat lineages) and the sophisticated echolocation system that allows them to identify the environment ( Jones and Teeling, 2006). Despite their known diversity, bats are still considered as a monophyletic group ( Bishop, 2008; Bisson et al., 2009).

Bats are commonly infected with several trypanosomatid species, mainly from the Trypanosoma genus: T. cruzi , T. vespertilionis , and T. ( Megatrypanum ) sp., among others ( Lima et al., 2012a). There is only one report of the isolation of Leishmania parasites ( L. infantum ) from the blood of a short-tailed fruit bat Carollia perspicillata in Venezuela ( De Lima et al., 2008) ( Table 1). Before that, Lampo et al. had demonstrated that bats could be sources of blood for Lutzomyia longipalpis in Venezuelan caves ( Lampo et al., 2000).

In Brazil, two Leishmania species were identified in macerated fragments of spleen and liver from bats using a nested PCR followed by sequencing of the amplified products. Molossus molossus and Glossophaga soricina were found to be infected with L. infantum and L. amazonensis , and the latter was also found in Molossus rufus , Nyctinomops laticaudatus , Eumops glaucinus , E. auripendulus , Artibeus literatus , Sturnira lilium and Myotis nigricans ( Savani et al., 2010) . Recently, Leishmania (Viannia) sp. was detected in a skin lesion from Glossophaga soricina and blood from Molossus molossus ( Shapiro et al., 2013) ( Table 1). In this article, although the authors have described infection with L. braziliensis, PCR-RFLP using primers b1 and b2 ( Schonian et al., 2003) does not allow for differentiation among other species from the same subgenus, such as L. guyanensis .

Bats should not be excluded as potential reservoirs of Leishmania sp. because of the lack of studies involving Leishmania and bats. Chiroptera represents 39% of the 560 mammal species reported in South American rainforests, it is the most common mammal group in terms of diversity and biomass ( Emmons and Feer, 1997; Rotureau, 2006). These flying mammals are found in wild, domestic and synanthropic environments, being able to colonize different habitats in different ecotypes. Their refuges include hollow trees, the canopies of palm trees and ceilings of human houses and other rural buildings. Their high abundance and adaptability to peri-domestic environment reinforce the importance of investigating bats, already recognized as reservoirs of other trypanosomatids ( Jansen and Roque, 2010), in the transmission cycles of Leishmania species.