Diclidurus scutatus Peters, 1869

Simmons, Nancy B. & Voss, Robert S., 1998, The mammals of Paracou, French Guiana, a Neotropical lowland rainforest fauna. Part 1, Bats, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 237, pp. 1-219 : 28

Diclidurus scutatus Peters

VOUCHER MATERIAL: 1 female (AMNH 267832); see table 3 for measurements.

IDENTIFICATION: Ceballos and Medellín (1988) provided a key to species based on external and dental measurements, and Jones and Hood (1993) modified this key by addition of characters of the palate. However, we found an often­overlooked paper by Ojasti and Linares (1971) to be more useful than any other single reference: they noted features of the premolars and basicranium distinguishing the subgenera and species of Diclidurus , and they provided comparative descriptions of each species.

Husson (1962, 1978) described Diclidurus scutatus in detail and figured the glandular pouches of the uropatagium, which may have a unique structure in this species. Measurements of other referred specimens were provided by Ojasti and Linares (1971), Jones and Hood (1993), and Brosset and Charles­ Dominique (1990). Subspecies of D. scutatus are not currently recognized (Koopman, 1994).

Our specimen conforms externally in all respects to previous descriptions of this species. Because the identification seemed unambiguous, we did not extract the skull in order to preserve the soft tissues of the head for future study.

FIELD OBSERVATIONS: Our single example of this widespread but seldom collected bat was captured at 19:30 hours in a mistnet suspended 17–20 m above a narrow dirt road through well­drained primary forest.