Biology, shelter use and rabies antibodies in the hairy-legged vampire bat, Diphylla ecaudata, in cohabitation with Desmodus rotundus: A large colony in a man-made building in southeastern Brazil, with comments on conservation

Abstract

The hairy-legged vampire bat, Diphylla ecaudata, is a relatively rare, poorly known, and specialized species that feeds primarily on the blood of birds. We studied a large colony of D. ecaudata rosting with the common hematophagous bats Desmodus rotundus, in a brick house in Sao Paulo, a large metropolis in southeastern Brazil. The colony size varied from 68 individuals in July 2011 to 21 in February 2014, and females were slightly larger than males. This is the first record of a large group of D. ecaudata sheltering in a man-made structure in Brazil and the first largest group of the species recorded in the country. As a rabies control measure, some animals were subjected to fluorescent antibody and mouse inoculation tests. Blood samples were collected from 24 animals, and the sera were tested for the presence of rabies antibodies using a simplified fluorescent inhibition microtest. No bat tested positive for rabies. Using 0.5 IU/ml as the cut-off, the prevalence of rabies antibodies was 58.8% in D. ecaudata and 83.0% in D. rotundus. The expressive levels of rabies antibodies indicate that the rabies virus actively circulates between the two species.