Vocal signatures of the bats of Florida

This is a contextual and interactive key for the identification of bats of Florida based on vocal signatures.

Data from >20,000 call files was used to develop the key.

Not all species reported for the state are broadly distributed. The context of where the calls are recorded will often limit the probabilities of species occurrence.

The keys for many New World country distributions include elevation and ecological/habitat areas in addition to administrative zones that further refine distributions.

However, this level of data is currently not available for most species in Florida therefore distribution is limited to occurrence by county.

Additional contextual separation of species by vocal signatures includes bandwidth and call shapes that are characteristic of families and genera.

Final identifications are often based on numeric values of standard call parameters that are useful for species identifications.

In many cases only a few of these numerical parameters e.g., the characteristic frequency (Fc) at the fundamental harmonic are necessary to differentiate species.

Other parameters may be necessary to further differentiate species with overlapping Fc values.

Author: Bruce Miller