THE WILD MAMMALS OF LOMBOK ISLAND: Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia: Systematics and Natural History.

WA Museum Records and Supplements | Updated 1 decade ago

Abstract: This report increases the recorded mammal fauna on Lombok I. from 24 to a possiblc 53 species. The additions comprise 24 chiropteran bats, a squirrel, a murid rodent, a civet, a felid and a pangolin. Many of the chiropteran species are significant extensions of their distributional range. Callosciurus notatus is the first squirrel recorded east of Wallace's biogeographic line.

The mammal fauna of Lombok I., while depauperate in ground mammals compared to other Sunda islands, is much more similar to that of Bali I. than was previously supposed. This indicates that Wallace's line, which is drawn through the Lombok Strait, is not an important marker indicating the eastward break in the Oriental sundaic mammal fauna.

Evidence is presented to question the prevailing notion that Lombok I. was separated from Bali I. by a wide deep strait throughout the Pleistocene. A dry land southern corridor may in fact have linked these islands through Nusa Penida I.

Observations on reproductive activity indicate that most species of chiroptera have bred or are pregnant just before the onset of the monsoon rains in November. Pteropodid bats are reproductively active at the end of the rainy season in May but reduced activity is observed in some microchiropterans. Limited data indicate that at least one species of bat (Cynopterus titthaecheilus) gives birth to young earlier in the moister northern parts of Lombok I. than it does in the drier southern parts of the island. Chiropteran species diversity on Lombok I. is relatively high from sea-level to 50 m altitude. It is highest at low-intermediate altitudes (200 m). At 400 m it has dropped slightly and at 1200 and 1700 m it has fallen dramatically. These changes are paralleled by species richness. Relative abundance of chiropterans does not, however, change markedly from 0-400 m, although it is highest on the coast.