Lesser Horseshoe Bat Discovered in Vrsac, for the First Time in Vojvodina Territory

The Natural History Museum in Belgrade has announced that, in late March, in the well-known cave habitat on the Vrsac Mountains, for the first time in the territory of Vojvodina, the lesser horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus hipposideros) was discovered.

The presence of a new type of bat in Vojvodina, two grown males, was registered by the nature guard at the PUE “Drugi oktobar” from Vrsac, Milivoj Vucanovic, (the company is in charge of the Outstanding Natural Landscape “Vrsac Mountains”) and the curator-adviser of the collection of mammals at the Natural History Museum in Belgrade, Dr Milan Paunovic, during a regular check of the cave habitat on the periphery of Vrsac.

A total of 25 types of bats are known in Vojvodina, of a total of 31 in the territory of Serbia. The lesser horseshoe bat is otherwise present in the hilly and mountainous areas south of the Sava and the Danube. The biggest winter retreat of that type of bat in Serbia is Rajko’s Cave near Majdanpek, where over 300 animals are recorded on average.

The Natural History Museum in Belgrade does the monitoring of bats in Serbia as part of the “Ecological Network of Serbia” project, whose carrier is the Faculty of Biology of the University of Belgrade.

Prirodnjački muzej Beograd

JKP Drugi oktobar Vršac

Biološki fakultet Beograd

Natural History Museum in Belgrade

PUE Drugi oktobar

Faculty of Biology

Vršac Mountains

Rajko s Cave

Milivoj Vučanović

Milan Paunović

lesser horseshoe bat

bat

Ecological Network of Serbia