Mesquite bugs, other insects, and a bat in the diet of pallid bats in southeastern Arizona.

ABSTRACT: The pallid bat (Antrozous pallidus) is a species of western North America, inhabiting ecoregions ranging from desert to oak and pine forest. They are primarily insectivorous predators on large arthropods that occasionally take small vertebrate prey, and are at least seasonally omnivorous in certain parts of their geographic range where they take nectar from cactus flowers and eat cactus fruit pulp and seeds. Until recently, mesquite bugs were primarily tropical-subtropical inhabitants of Mexico and Central America but have since occupied the southwestern United States where mesquite trees occur. Using a noninvasive method, we investigated the bats' diet at the Cienega Creek Natural Preserve, Arizona, by collecting food parts discarded beneath three night roosts in soil-piping caviti

SUBMITTER: Czaplewski NJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6284427 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature