Rare sighting shines spotlight on Brazilian bats.
07.17.24
By Kristen Pope
When a rare greater false vampire bat (Vampyrum spectrum) swooped outside a cave near Tartarugalzinho, Brazil, our Brazil Program Manager Dr. Jennifer Barros was ready. Her photo equipment had already been set up from assessing the large colony of Pteronotus bats inside. The bat was larger than the others and evidently carnivorous as it flew around and tried to snap up other bats to eat. She recognized it as a greater false vampire bat, which she had caught when she was working on her master’s degree. Knowing how rare the sighting was, she snapped a photo that created a sensation in Brazil, with a local reporter coming out to interview her about the sighting.
In Brazil, 45% of the nation’s 182 known bat species roost in caves, making these landforms crucial to bat conservation. Caves in Brazil face a number of threats, such as mining and deforestation. Some of Brazil’s caves are vital for threatened species, including three Endangered species of cave-roosting bats: Natalus macrourus, Furipterus horrens, and Lonchophylla dekeyseri.
While Jennifer set her sights on working with wildlife early on, she didn’t originally envision herself working with bats. She thought she would spend her days working with large carnivores like jaguars and maned wolves, but when she had an opportunity to assist with bat research as an undergraduate, one peek at Brazil’s second largest bat, Chrotopterus auritus, in a mist net changed her course. She saw its big ears and fluffy body, and was hooked on bats. As an added bonus, she appreciated the nocturnal schedule of a bat researcher.
Leading our Brazil cave conservation initiative, Dr. Barros supports other work throughout the region and collaborates with government agencies, nonprofits, and communities to communicate the importance of these caves and the rare bats they are home to. The country has more than 23,000 caves; only around 20 are “hot caves” that can reach up to 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit). These caves host maternity colonies, where fur-less pups of Pteronotus species can stay warm, aided by the body heat of thousands of mammals and the mass of decomposing guano.
While earning her master’s degree, Barros became a BCI Student Scholar and then embarked on her PhD, focusing on developing strategies to prioritize cave conservation in Brazil. Next, she completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Germany focusing on cave roosting bats’ energetic strategies. In 2023 she was hired by BCI.In her role, Dr. Barros is working on a three-phase project to protect Brazil’s caves. The first phase is working to assess the caves and the bats that live there. Next, the team will work on applying conservation actions like installing gates to keep people out and allow bats to pass in and out of caves, as well as working with the government to support the National Plan for Caves Conservation. The last phase is monitoring to assess the results of the applied actions and providing information for the national evaluation of the endangered species She hopes these efforts will help conserve Brazil’s caves and the many species that live in them and feed near them—including rarely spotted ones like the greater false vampire bat.
Meet The Biologist
Jennifer Barros, Ph.D. – Gerente do Programa Brasil
As BCI’s Brazil Program Manager, Jennifer is responsible for leading our cave conservation initiative in Brazil while supporting other projects across Latin America. In this role, Jennifer will work with local communities, NGOs, and Government agencies across Brazil to drive the most effective conservation strategies to protect and enhance critical roost sites for endangered bat species and large colonies throughout the region. Brazil supports one of the richest diversities of bats in the world; of the 181 species of bats currently known to occur in Brazil, 45% are known to roost in caves.
With over ten years of experience studying bats, Jennifer received her master’s from the Universidade Federal de Lavras and her Ph.D. from the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco in Brazil, where she focused on bat cave selection across multiple habitats and developed a prioritization strategy for cave conservation in Brazil. Her research led to a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Konstanz, Germany, to understand the behavioral ecology in cave bat roosting energetic strategies. Jennifer is a former BCI student scholar and, prior to joining BCI, Jennifer has worked extensively across Brazil on cave conservation efforts to minimize the impacts of mining – one of the main threats in the country for bats and caves.
