Study On Parasite-host Relationship And Grooming Behaviors Of The Two Bamboo Bat Species

Mites were the mostly ectoparasites of bats species, present interspecies and sexually difference in wild-field. While, sex, reproduce and body condition generally affect the prevalence and level of parasites on hosts. Ectoparasites of bats always present high specificity and adaptability between them, mites of two Flat-headed bat were only found on them native hosts even the two bat species frequently exchange the roosting of bamboo culm in the same bamboo bush. The experiments of anew infection and across infection suggest that Macronyssus pararadovskyi sp. nov. (mite of Tylonycteris pachypus) significantly choose these individuals which were beneficial to survival and reproduction. As in anew infection experiments, the males infected more mites, in across experiments, Lesser Bamboo Bat (T. pachypus) infected more mites than Greater Bamboo Yellow Bat (T. robustula). The analyses of the relationship between parasite load and body condition of bats revealed the number mites positive correlated with the body condition index (indexed as the ratio of weight to forearm length) in female T. pachypus individuals.Grooming was one of the effective behaviors strategy to defend ectoparasites infection. Studied on the grooming behaviors of Lesser Bamboo Bat and Greater Bamboo Yellow Bat suggested that significantly difference without species but within (by sexual) relative to duration and significantly difference relative to frequency for the two behaviors (licking and scratching). Load of ectoparasite of the two bamboo bats do not significantly correlation to frequency and duration of grooming. This suggest that grooming of the two bamboo bats effected by the central control (programmed grooming) model proposes and the peripheral stimulation (stimulus driven) model.