Molossus molossus molossus (Pallas 1766)

Specimens examined (11).— Codrington Village, 2 (AMNH); Dominic, 4.3 km E Codrington, 17°38'26.6"N, 61°47'05.8"W, 14 m, 6 (TTU); Gun Shop Cave, 17°40'03"N, 61°46'00"W, 11 m, 2 (TTU); no specific locality, 1 (NMNH).

Koopman (1968) first reported Pallas’s mastiff bat from Barbuda based on two specimens from Codrington Village that also were examined for our study. Table 1 presents the length of forearm and seven cranial measurements for a sample of two males and five females from Barbuda. The two males were larger than the range of measurements of the females in four measurements (greatest length of skull, condylobasal length, postorbital constriction, and mastoid breadth), whereas the values for the sexes overlap for the other four measurements. Husson (1962) restricted the type locality of M. molossus to the island of Martinique, which lead Dolan (1989) to apply the name M. m. molossus to this species throughout the Lesser Antilles.

These free-tailed bats were observed emerging from buildings in Codrington near dusk during 1994 and 2003, but even here they did not seem to be as abundant as on other islands that we have visited in the northern Lesser Antilles. We netted six adult females in the abandoned mango orchard called Dominic on 4 June. These bats were taken in the same nets as A. jamaicensis and B. cavernarum. An adult male and female were netted inside Gun Shop Cave along with eight Brazilian free-tailed bats. It appeared that the bats had already fed and were using the cave as a night roost in 2003 because searches of the cave during the day revealed no bats. The circumstances under which the other specimens were taken are unknown to us.

None of the seven females taken on 4 June 2003 evinced reproductive activity nor did the single female taken on 5 March 1963. A male taken on 5 March 1963 had testes that measured 5.5, and the male from 4 June 2003 had testes that measured 6. A female taken on 20August 1903 had wing epiphyses that were not completely fused but its length of forearm was of adult size (38.1). The male from 2003 weighed 11.5, whereas the seven females had an average weight of 10.2 (8.8-11.6).