Documenting California Bat Diversity
Establishing a modern geographic collection in support of research, biogeographic studies, and teaching
Junior Specialist Danielle Fradet assessing a bat carcass at CDFW's Bat Fest. (Photo courtesy of California Department of Fish and Wildlife)
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) conducts a program called Bat Fest, in which bats that are picked up by the public throughout California are sent to California Department of Public Health for rabies screening. If the bats test negative for rabies, they are then shipped frozen to the CDFW Nimbus Forensics and Wildlife Health Laboratory (WHL) for further disease testing. At least once a year, CDFW hosts several regional bat experts at Bat Fest, during which all the bat specimens at the WHL are properly identified to species and then run through sampling stations. Since 2022, the MWFB team has participated in Bat Fest with the purpose of rescuing a subsample of bats to keep as voucher specimens, with a goal to archive specimens of each species from every county in the state. We currently have approximately 550 frozen bats representing 19 species (out of 25 in the state) from 35 California counties. We will continue to add to this diversity of specimens in future Bat Fest efforts. All of our bats are in good condition and will yield excellent voucher specimens. Tissues will be also sampled from every bat specimen and archived in our cryo-collection; these tissues will be available to researchers upon request and research. The Museum has received the data for every specimen, which will accompany the specimen into our searchable database.
Prepared specimens will be archived in the MWFB. Our goal is to preserve specimens as voucher skins and skulls, skeletons, and alcohol preserved whole carcasses. We currently have specimens of Brazilian free-tailed bats from 30 California counties to date, though we strive to secure specimens from all 58 counties if possible. We hope to create a comprehensive collection of bat species for each county; such a collection will be invaluable to future researchers as a resource of geographic vouchers. Once completed, this collection of California bats will be the most comprehensive modern collection in the state or beyond.
Emma Arriaga preparing a bat specimen in the MWFB prep lab.
The collection will also be available to train agency biologists in the identification of bats for field-based projects. Finally, we have plans to summarize the collection in a peer-reviewed publication, to provide a broader reach to the scientific community. The importance of historic specimens as a basis for documenting changes in vertebrate populations and communities cannot be understated. These specimens obtained in this era will have more relevance for researchers decades and centuries from from now.
