REPORT ___________________________________________________________________________
Relevant call metrics used in the Filters and Decision Trees were similar to those used in other published keys e.g. (Milne 2002, Pennay et al . 2004, Reinhold et al . 2001), calibrated against a personal reference library of over 1700 calls of bats from the North Queensland Region, collected over the last 20 years as part of Robson’s ongoing research into the ecology and behaviour of bats of the region e.g. Hourigan (2001), Hourigan et al . (2006), Inkster (2008, 2011), Parsons (2005, 2011), Parsons et al . (2006, 2007, 2010, 2011), Reardon et al . (2010) and Stiso (2013).
Recent changes in bat taxonomy follow Jackson & Groves (2015), van Dyck et al. (2013) and ongoing discussions with the Australian bat research community.
The species pool of bats likely to be present within a 50 km radius of the survey sites was determined using the BatMap function of the Australasian Bat Society https://www.ausbats.org.au/batmap.html.
The Environmental Protection & Biodiversity Conservation Act and the Nature Conservation Act conservation status of individual species was determined using the EPBC Protected
Matters WWW Search Tool https://www.environment.gov.au/cgi- bin/sprat/public/publicthreatenedlist.pl and the NCA WWW Search tool https://apps.des.qld.gov.au/species-search/details/?id=992.
It is currently not possible to reliably distinguish between the species of Long-eared bats in areas of geographical overlap, so the three species potentially present at this site based on call features alone, so the three species have been listed in Table 1 as a single group of Nyctophilus . It is currently not possible to reliably distinguish between Ozimops ridei and Seterostri eleyri based on search call features alone, so the two species have been listed in Table 1 as a single group. The Scoteanax and Scotorepens species of north Queensland can be difficult and time- consuming to confidently identify to species, and given that none of them are of particular conservation interest they have also been placed into a single group in Table 1.
Results and Discussion
A total of 23,876 sound files were collected and examined from the sites of which 18,410 could be identified as bat calls (Table 1). Representative calls are provided in Appendix 1.
Ultrasound surveys of the two sites identified at least six bat species 1: Chaerephon jobensis, 2: Miniopterus australis,3: Miniopterus orianae oceanensis, 4: Ozimops ridei &/or Seterostri eleyri, 5: Rhinolophus megaphyllus and 6. Vespadelus troughtoni. All species detected are listed as being of Least Concern within the Qld Government Threatened Species Listing. None of these species are listed as being either Vulnerable, Endangered or Critically Endangered within the EPBC Act List of Threatened Fauna.
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