Consistency of use of hummingbird feeders by the nectar-feeding bat Leptonycteris yerbabuenae (Chiroptera, Phyllostomidae) in the Tucson Basin, Arizona

We studied the foraging behavior of 29 radio-tagged individuals of the nectar-feeding phyllostomid bat Leptonycteris yerbabuenae using a short-range ATLAS tracking system as they fed at hummingbird feeders at three sites in Tucson, Arizona. We tested two hypotheses: (1) a spatiotemporal consistency hypothesis which predicts that bats will be consistent in their use of the feeders where they were captured for extended periods of time and (2) a temporal association hypothesis which predicts that bats captured together will continue to forage together on subsequent nights for extended periods of time. Our data supports hypothesis (1) but not hypothesis (2). Most of the tagged bats continued to visit the site where they were captured on most nights for up to 30 days, but pairs captured together did not continue to visit these sites together more often than expected by chance. From this, we infer that groups of bats that visit feeders do not do so as socially cohesive units.