habitat_narrative
Terrestrial
The Striped Leaf-nosed Bat occupies a variety of savannah and woodland habitats, ranging from arid scrubby savannah in Namibia to moist Miombo Woodland in Zimbabwe and Mozambique (Cotterill 2001). In southern Africa it is recorded from the Mopane Bioregion. The species is a clutter-edge forager with a diet consisting mostly of Coleoptera, only occasionally consuming Isoptera (Monadjem et al. 2010). It is entirely dependent on large caves for breeding, where large colonies numbering hundreds of thousands of individuals may aggregate (Monadjem et al. 2010). When suitable caves are available for roosting, extremely large colonies of H. vittatus can occur, but smaller groups do also roost in dense vegetation, hollow trees and tree canopies (Happold 1987; Skinner & Chimimba 2005). It is frequently seen flying between and within buildings, and occasionally roosts under the eaves of buildings (Skinner & Chimimba 2005). Males exhibit territorial behaviour between February and July, but will roost together during the rest of the year (Monadjem et al. 2010). Generally mating commences in June/July, and pregnant females leave the breeding roost for about two months before returning in late October to give birth (Cotterill & Fergusson 1999).Ecosystem and cultural services: The speciesâ feeding ecology makes them important regulators of insect populations (Boyles et al. 2011; Kunz et al. 2011). Bats particularly feed on species that damage crops, and agricultural areas with bats require less pesticides (Kunz et al. 2011).
