Diphylla ecaudata Spix, 1823

Velazco, Paúl M., Voss, Robert S., Fleck, David W. & Simmons, Nancy B., 2021, Mammalian Diversity And Matses Ethnomammalogy In Amazonian Peru Part 4: Bats, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2021 (451), pp. 1-201 : 40

Diphylla ecaudata Spix, 1823

VOUCHER MATERIAL (TOTAL = 3): Quebrada Betilia (MUSA 15164), Quebrada Lobo (MUSA 15132), Quebrada Pantaleón (MUSA 15248).

UNVOUCHERED OBSERVATIONS: None.

IDENTIFICATION: Diphylla ecaudata can be distinguished from other vampire species by the following characteristics: thumb small (usually <13 mm) and lacking basal pads, calcar stout (not a wartlike excrescence), uropatagium well furred, ventral fur unicolored, tail absent, occlusal margin of lower inner incisors with four lobes, occlusal margin of lower outer incisors with three lobes, two upper incisors and two lower molars present on each side (Kwon and Gardner, 2008; Cirranello et al., 2016; López-Baucells et al., 2018). Descriptions and measurements of D. ecaudata were provided by Swanepoel and Genoways (1979), Greenhall et al. (1984), Kwon and Gardner (2008), and Velazco and Patterson (2019). Two subspecies are currently recognized: D. e. centralis (southern US southward through eastern Mexico and Central America) and D. e. ecaudata ( Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil, with the exception of the central Amazon basin) (Greenhall et al., 1984; Kwon and Gardner, 2008).

Medina et al. (2015: fig. 2D) correctly identified their specimens as belonging to the nominotypical subspecies.

REMARKS: All examined specimens of Diphylla ecaudata are from the Zona Reservada Sierra del Divisor, where they were presumably taken in mistnets (Medina et al., 2015), but no other capture information is currently available to us. No roosting groups of this typically caveroosting species (Kwon and Gardner, 2008) were encountered during our fieldwork.