Prospects for studyıng bats of Karabakh as part of the Lesser Caucasus fauna N.A. Hasanov

Abstract

The article highlights the gap in studying the bat fauna in Mountainous-Karabakh and adjacent areas within the Lesser Caucasus as no research studies were conducted in this part because of the prolonged territorial occupation. Comparative description of bat fauna is being provided between Mountainous-Karabakh and the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic (AR) which reveals a close faunal similarity, one of the reasons of which is the local movements of bats between these sides. Nine species of regional bat fauna (19 species or 58% of local bat fauna) carry local conservation status. Most species tend to decline in global populations. The importance of studying the bat fauna of the Lesser Caucasus, including the bats in Karabakh, in more modern approaches and using stationary and mobile detectors which are already being applied in house by the author as well as other modern equipment (using acoustic and remote tracking methods) remains necessary for studying certain ecological peculiarities of bats. This article presents echo spectrograms of four bats as examples.