More than 60 years of ringing Miniopterus schreibersii (Kuhl, 1817) in Serbia: Movements and longevity data

Abstract

Schreiber's Bent-winged bat, Miniopterus schreibersii (Kuhl, 1817), has a Mediterranean distribution and is one of the most common cave-dwelling bat species in Serbia. It is highly gregarious, forming large nursery and huge hibernation colonies, comprising of few hundred to several tens of thousands of individuals (extreme up to 80000). It is considered to be a regional vagrant, commuting on average 40-100 km between summer and winter roosts, and philopatric to their nursery roosts. Population in Serbia is estimated at least about 150000 individuals, has a stable population trend and has been recorded on more than 75 sites. M. schreibersii has been ringed regularly in Serbia since 1955. During this 60 years period, we gathered some interesting data on the migration patterns, distances crossed and life expectancy in this species. A total of 2982 animals were ringed and 154 of them were recaptured. The oldest animal recaptured has carried its ring for more than 11 years, and few others for eight years at the moment. The longest movement recorded was 216 km, between Petrovaradin fortress (Novi Sad) and Puhovac village (Aleksandrovac) within only four days. Eleven more recaptures were over 100 km. We had five trans-boundary recaptures: two from Bulgaria (Ravanička pećina – Vidin, 110 km; Vernjikica cave – Vidin, 75.2 km); two from Bosnia and Herzegovina (Petrovaradin fortress – Dardagani quarry, Zvornik, 110 km) and one from Romania (Vršac quarry – mine shaft near Sasca Montana, 43.8 km). Ringing program in Serbia will be continued and we expect to gather more interesting data on movements and roost utilization of this and other bat species in the future.