13 January 2018

ID help

Hi all,

In what was mainly a birdwatching trip (naughty, naughty, I know) to Senegal in November, we came across a few mammals as well. A couple of them remain unidentified, and our hope is that someone here can help.

The bats were found in some abandoned buildings in Djoudj NP, in the northwestern corner of the country. In fact they may be the very same mentioned in Cheryl Antonucci’s recent report. She calls them Gambian Slit-faced Bat. However, according to IUCN this is slightly out of range…

The shrew was rescued from a swimming pool at Hotel Calao in Dakar. As you can see – compared to the thumb of a grown man – its quite big, and we suspect it to be an African Giant Shrew. Can anyone confirm this, or could it be something else?

Jon (not Hall)

Post Views: 761

2 Comments

  • 17 January 2018
    geomalia

    I’d recommend posting your photos on iNaturalist, and the ones of the bats to the AfriBats project in particular: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/afribats. They should be able to ID them, and perhaps the shrew as well.

    Best,
    Ben
    http://www.tremarctos.com

  • 18 January 2018
    Jon Lehmberg

    Hi Ben,

    Thanks for your comment.
    Jon H. suggested posting on iNaturalist as well, and I’ve done that now.
    I’m not very optimistic about the chance of identifying the bats, though, since they are apparently very difficult, even if there are only a handful of Nycteris species to choose from.
    The shrew should be easier, I think.

    Just checked your gallery by the way – very nice!

    Cheers,
    Jon

Leave a Reply