Bioacoustics of Coleura afra

Habitat . Dry woodlands, dry forests, and rocky habitats close to lakes or coastal areas. Food and Feeding . The African Sheath-tailed Bat forages for insects by fest hawking in open spaces. Moths and beetles comprise 40-70% of the diet through the year. Breeding . Gestation of the African Sheath-tailed Bat lasts 114-122 days. Mothers carry the single young for an extended period when foraging. Parturition is highly synchronized and occurs twice a year in Kenya during long (March-June) and short (November-December) rainy seasons. Males and females become sexually mature in their first year of life. Activity patterns. The African Sheath-tailed Bat is crepuscular and emerges from roosting at dusk to forage. It roosts in lit areas of caves and rocky outcrops but also in dark abandoned buildings. To hunt for insects, African Sheath-tailed Bats produce LDCQCF echolocation calls, with peak frequency at 33 kHz, short bandwidth (c.2-4 kHz), and long duration (7-7 milliseconds). Fundamental and second harmonics often show in a spectrogram. Echolocation call is well designed for targeting aerial prey at relatively long distances. Movements, Home range and Social organization. African Sheath-tailed Bats are highly gregarious and can be found in roosting colonies of hundreds and up to 50,000 individuals in one instance in Kenya. Clusters of individuals can represent harems attended by a single breeding male that defends his breeding site. Within a cluster, individual spacing is maintained. Adult males reportedly defend individual feeding territories.