Nanonycteris veldkampii

Nanonycteris veldkampii (Jentink, 1888)

(Fig. 9, Table 3)

Epomophorus veldkampii Jentink, 1888: 52.

COMMON NAMES. — English: Veldkamp’s Dwarf Fruit Bat. French: Roussette naine de Veldkamp.

MATERIAL EXAMINED. — 14 specimens (including original data).

Mount Cameroon area • 3 ♂♂, 3 ♀♀; Victoria; 4°00’46”N, 9°13’13”E; 136 m; 12.XII-21.XII.1968; Martin Eisentraut leg.; ZFMK 1969.0603 to 0607; 0786.

Other localities of Cameroon • 2 specimens; Nyasoso; 4°49’42”N, 9°40’55”E; 1078 m, 10.XII.1966; Martin Eisentraut leg.; ZFMK 1969.0601, 0602.

ORIGINAL DATA. — The mainly nectar-feeding Veldkamp’s dwarf epauletted fruit bat was represented by six individuals (Table 1): one female was netted in a farmland at an altitude of 20 m a.s.l. and five other individuals (3 males and 2 females) were captured at another cultivated site at an altitude of 470 m a.s.l. (Table 1). The species was previously recorded from Mount Cameroon by Eisentraut (1973).

HABITATS AND DISTRIBUTION. — This species is widely distributed in West Africa and western parts of Central Africa. It principally inhabits disturbed lowland rainforest, but has also been recorded in savannah habitats, gallery forest and isolated forest patches where it roosts singly or in pairs in the lower parts of shrub and trees among dense foliage (Happold 1987). Thomas (1983) noted that this species shows migratory patterns with both sexes moving between forest and savannah habitats in West Africa.