February 20, 2013

The bat fauna of Algeria – a review

ABSTRACT
Algeria is the largest country in Africa, where live 25 species of bats belonging to seven families, and no comprehensive study has been undertaken since 1991, there is a great to do because the knowledge of the bats of this country are very limited, hence the necessity to do additional monitoring and exploration to protect these threatened species. The objective of our work is to give a working tool of reference available to researchers to learn more about this heritage.

KEY WORDS: Algeria, Chiroptera, historical knowledge, distribution, conservation,

INTRODUCTION

Historical knowledge about bats in Algeria
Although bats have been studied in some countries of North Africa such as Morocco (Laurent 1937, Brosset 1955 and 1960, Panouse 1951, 1953 and 1955. Strinati 1951 and 1953, and Hill 1964.), Tunisia (Deleuil and Labbe 1954, Aellen and Strinati 1969 and 1970, Baker and al 1974), and Libya (Hufnagl and al 1972, Benda 2004), Algeria is an exception and no comprehensive study has been undertaken until 1991 by Kowalski and Rzebick-Kowalska.
Laurent (1944) first banded bats in North Africa in 1942 in a cave in the vicinity of Algiers, and Anciaux de Faveaux (1976) established the first study of Algerian bats. He recorded 23 species belonging to five families, some of which are rare and the taxonomic classification of two remains problematic.
This list was supplemented by Gaisler (1983), who worked mainly in the northern part of the country and first pointed out the presence of Myotis nattereri in Algeria, and the reappearance after an absence of nearly a century of Pipistrellus pipistrellus and Myotis capaccinii.
In their publication "Mammals of Algeria", Kowalski and Rzebick-Kowalska (1991) reported the existence of 26 species of bats, thus confirming his data (Kowalski 1979) and the data of Gaisler (1983), and in 1984 Kowalski reported on the cavernicolous bats of Algeria.
In view of the paucity of data on the current status of bats of Algeria, we have attempted in this paper to highlight the need for a thorough study of the Order Chiroptera, provide a bibliography, a distribution map and an assessment of the conservation status of each species.
MATERIAL AND METHODS
Algeria
Algeria is located in North West Africa, part of the Maghreb, and with an extensive (1200 km) Mediterranean coastline. It is bordered on the east by Tunisia (965 km) and to the west by the Morocco (1559 km). Algeria has also borders with Libya (982 km), Niger (956 km) south-east, with Mali (1376 km) to the south as well as the Western Sahara and Mauritania (463 km) in the South West.
As a large country with contrasting relief, Algeria offers a wide variety of climates that vary with distance from the sea, increasingly hot and dry. The rainfall increases from west to east and is concentrated between September and May. It is the largest country in Africa and is tenth in the world by area, 2,381,741 km2, of which 85% consists of the Sahara.
Geography
The country is divided into five distinct districts, around a north-south axis characterized by climate

The littoral zone: A large 80 km to 190 km coastal strip includes lowlands and richest territories of the country. The climate is Mediterranean. Sometimes the sirocco brings the heat and sand of the Sahara to coastal cities. The eastern part formed by the mountains of Kabylia and Constantine is the wettest.
Chains of the Tell Atlas is located between the sea and the high plains and extend over nearly 7,000 km (highest point: Mount Lala Khadija: 2308 m). This area contains watershed forests of olive trees and oaks and is densely populated.
The High Plains and plateaus: These immense steppe plateaus extend from east to west, from 600-1 000 m. The climate is semi-arid and allows cereal crops without irrigation with some depressions (called Chott). Semi-desert in appearance, these areas have long been places of transhumance in Saharan Africa.
The Saharan Atlas Mountains: This southern succession of mountains marks the boundary of the arid climate and limits the North and the Sahara culminating with Mount Chelia in the Aures, at 2328 m.
The Sahara and its massive mountains (Hoggar and Tassili): Covering a large part of southern Algeria, the Algerian Sahara, with its two million square kilometers, accounts for a quarter of the entire desert. It is a dry and arid desert landscapes with varied ergs (kind of land in the Sahara maked up by great sandy areas), dry valleys, arid plains and sand dunes. It includes the massive volcanic Hoggar Mountains with the highest mountain in Algeria, Tahat reaches 2918 meters above sea level, and the Tassili massif. Average temperatures range from 36°C during the day and 5°C at night.
RESULTS
Bat Species identified:
Initially 26 species were reported for Algeria, but with the advent of molecular biology there are species that have proved to be the same (Pipistrellus deserti and Pipistrellus kuhlii), some species have changed nomenclature (Eptisecus isabellinus at the place of Eptisecus serotinus, Plecotus gaisleri at the place of Plecotus austriacus, Rhinopoma cystops instead Rhinopoma hardwickei). Miniopterus schreibersi is classified now in the new family of the Miniopteridae.
These changes have increased the number of algerian bats to 25 species belonging to seven different families .
The species of Chiroptera living in Algeria is recorded in Table 1.

Table 1 – Species richness of bats in Algeria
Family Number of species Species
Rhinopomatidae 01 Rhinopoma cystops (Gray, 1831)
Emballonuridae 01 Taphozous nudiventris (Cretzschmar, 1830)
Rhinolophidae 06 Rhinolophus blasii (Peters, 1866)
Rhinolophus clivosus (Cretzschmar, 1828)
Rhinolophus euryale (Blasius, 1853)
Rhinolophus ferrumequinum (Schreber, 1774)
Rhinolophus hipposideros (Bechstein, 1800)
Rhinolophus mehelyi (Matschie, 1901)
Vespertilionidae 13 Eptesicus isabellinus
Myotis punicus (Felten, Spitzenberger, and Storch, 1977)
Myotis capaccinii (Bonaparte, 1837)
Myotis emarginatus (É. Geoffroy, 1806)
Myotis nattereri (Kuhl, 1817)
Nyctalus leisleri (Kuhl, 1817)
Nyctalus noctula (Schreber, 1774)
Otonycteris hemprichii (Peters, 1859)
Pipistrellus kuhlii (Kuhl, 1817)
Pipistrellus pipistrellus (Schreber, 1774)
Pipistrellus rueppelli (Fischer, 1829)
Hypsugo savii (Bonaparte, 1837)
Plecotus gaisleri (Barret-Hamilton, 1907)
Molossidae 02 Tadarida aegyptiaca (É. Geoffroy, 1818)
Tadarida teniotis (Rafinesque, 1814)
Miniopteridae 01 Miniopterus schreibersii (Kuhl, 1817)
Hipposideridae 01 Asellia tridens (É. Geoffroy, 1813)

Habitat and distribution
According to Anciaux de Faveaux (1976), the bats of Algeria can be divided according to the biotopes they occupy into four main groups:

  • The troglophilic species
  • The lithophilic species
  • The phytophilous species
  • The anthropophilic species.
    The troglophilic species
    These are species that overwinter underground in caves and artificial cavities, and during the summer breeding season they seek warmer shelters such as attics, roofs of houses and mosques, ruins and rock crevices. They are represented by 14 species belonging to five families (Table 2).
    Table 2 – Troglophilic species of bats in Algeria
    Family Species

    Hipposideridae Asellia tridens

    Rhinolophidae Rhinolophus blasii
    Rhinolophus clivosus
    Rhinolophus euryale
    Rhinolophus ferrumequinum
    Rhinolophus hipposideros
    Rhinolophus mehelyi
    Rhinopomatidae Rhinopoma hardwickii

    Vespertilionidae Myotis punicus
    Myotis capaccinii
    Myotis emarginatus
    Plecotus gaisleri

    Emballonuridae Taphozous nudiventris
    Miniopteridae Miniopterus schreibersii
    Total species 14

The lithophilic species
These are species that usually live in rocky crevices and cracks in walls, There are four belonging to two families (Table 3).

Table 3 – Lithophilic species of bats in Algeria
Family Species

Molossidae Tadarida aegyptiaca
Tadarida teniotis

Vespertilionidae Otonycteris hemprichii
Hypsugo savii

Total species 04

The phytophilous species
These are the species that live in the foliage of trees and in tree bark. All four species belong to the family Vespertilionidae (Table 4)

Table 4 – Phytophilous species of bats in Algeria
Family Species

Vespertilionidae Eptesicus isabellinus
Nyctalus noctula
Pipistrellus kuhlii
Pipistrellus rueppelli

Total species 04

The anthropophilic species.
These are species that live under the roof and the internal walls of human dwellings, under bridges of cities, and hunt around electricity poles in the city (Table 5).

Table 5 – Anthropophilic species of bats in Algeria
Family Species

Vespertilionidae Pipistrellus kuhlii
Pipistrellus pipistrellus

Total species 02

DISCUSSION
It is apparent that troglophilic species are the most numerous (14 species), belonging to five families. One family (the Molossidae) has no species in this habitat, and the most represented family is Vespertilionidae because its 13 species occupy four biotopes.
There are four lithophilic species, belonging to two families (Vespertilionidae and Molossidae). The latter family is comprised entirely of lithophilic species. Only four species of Vespertilionidae are phytophilous in Algeria, and the two anthropophilic species also belong to the Vespertilionidae.
In conclusion we note that the family whose species occupy the four biotopes is the family Vespertilionidae, one family (Molossidae) is lithophilic, and the remainder from other families (Rhinopomatidae, Hipposideridae, Emballonuridae and Rhinolophidae) are all troglophilic.

Zoogeography of Algerian bats
The Chiroptera reported from Algeria belong to the Palaearctic region, whose boundaries were drawn by Corbet (1978). This area is described as starting in the west, at the islands of Spitsbergen, the Azores, Madeira, and include the Canaries, but not the Cape Verde Islands.
In Africa, the Western limits start at 21°30'N Between Western Sahara and Mauritania, in Algeria, Libya, and Egypt. Niger, Chad, and Sudan are excluded. The Hoggar Mountains are included and the entire Arabian Peninsula is also included. The Asian limit begins between Pakistan and Iran, Afghanistan and continues to central China.
Working on three major climatic areas, according to Ochando (1979), Gaisler (1983) stipulated that seven species are characteristic of Northern Algerian (the Mediterranean area), where the climate varies from subhumid to semi-arid. The second area is the middle of Algeria with an arid climate, with the exception of some mountainous regions where the climate is semi-arid, including the Saharan Atlas.
The third area is the southern zone, represented by the Sahara desert. The main species of northern Algeria, according to this division are mainly Pipistrellus pipistrellus, Myotis punicus, Myotis schreibersii, and the rarer capaccinii Myotis, Myotis emarginatus, Myotis nattereri and Nyctalus leisleri.
We have retained the five major geographical comprising Algeria, following Kowalski and Rzebick-Kowalska (1991) for mammals. Data from Gaisler (1983), Hanak and Gaisler (1983), Gaisler (1984), Gaisler and Kowalski (1986) and Kowalski and Rzebick-Kowalska (1991)

This reveals that 17 of the 25 species (68%) of Algerian bats live in the coastal zone, which represents less than 10% of the total land area. This is followed by the two Atlas mountain ranges – the Sahara Atlas and the Tell Atlas which have 54% and 50% of Algerian bat species respectively.
The areas least populated by bats are in the high plateaus and high plains and the mountains and Sahara respectively with38% and 35%. These last two areas account for more than 90% of the land area of Algeria.
These results may reflect the fact that the sampling effort is very scattered, because according to the bibliography the majority of studies and surveys have been carried in the northern part of the country, the coastal zone and the Tell atlas.

CONCLUSION
With 25 identified species belonging to seven families , bats represent the second largest group of mammals in Algeria after rodents.
Studies of bats in Algeria have been very limited, and it is impossible to consider population trends and conservation status.
In view of the results of the distribution of bats in five major geographical areas of Algeria, it is clear that bat survey efforts have been concentrated in the north of the country and that the south has not been well explored. Therefore inventories are required throughout the country, in order to map preferred bat habitats and to establish conservation priorities.

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