batcall1.html - last modification Monday, 30-Aug-2004 15:58:41 EST

South-eastern Australian bat call library

Maintained and edited by Alexander Herr and Nicholas Klomp, Johnstone Centre of Parks, Recreation and Heritage, Charles Sturt University.

go straight to the file retrieval

see an example of a call file

download ANABAT version 5.2

Introduction

Echolocation calls of bats can be used to distinguish between species. They are particularly useful in bat and general fauna surveys. Several species can be identified by their calls, but not all species, and geographical variation may exist within species (Richards 1993). The intention of this call library is to create a central source of reference calls of south-eastern Australian bats for researchers and wildlife managers. It is hoped that other bat researchers will contribute to this library with their own recordings. This call library will not provide the facilities or security of the National Archive of Bat Ultrasound (Richards 1993), rather it is intended that it will be an exchange network of bat calls, relying on individual researchers providing accessible data. The library and WWW page will also act as a catalyst for discussion and exchange of ideas among bat researchers and other ecologists, using direct email links.

Contents of the directory

This directory currently contains bat calls, recorded while releasing the animals in the dark, using ANABAT detectors. Read the ASCII file content.txt for information on the call files. It is a database describing the call file contents in comma delimited format (CSV) with the following headers in the first line:

Filename          name of the call file

Extension         extension of the call file

Date              date of recording

Latitude          southern latitudinal coordinates of capture location

Longitude         eastern longitudinal coordinates of capture location

Species           species name

Spec              Sex, age, and additional information of the species

Additional info   Name of contributor and method of capture and
                  additional information 
              

Maintenance of the library

The authors will maintain the call files and give other bat researchers the opportunity to contribute their recordings to the library. Only files meeting certain requirements will be put on the network.

History of the regional library

In attempting to obtain a greater understanding of the ecology of forest dwelling bats in the western slopes of the Australian alps, the authors have become aware of the importance of using the bats' ultrasonic echolocation calls for species identification. However, only a handful of reference calls from south-eastern Australian bat species are currently available. After a season of intensive field work in our current study, some of the bat species known to occur in the area still have not been recorded, and their calls are not available regionally. The need for a national archive of bat calls has also been emphasized by other researchers (Kutt 1993, Richards 1993). Using the World Wide Web facilities at Charles Sturt University the concept of a bat call library as an exchange network has now been turned into reality.

How to access the library and retrieve reference calls

The network directory can be accessed via anonymous FTP (File Transfer Protocol) or with a WWW (World Wide Web) browser like Netscape or Mosaic. If you don't know how to use FTP or WWW facilities on your computer, you should talk to your computer system administrator.

Access via FTP:

ftp to batcall.csu.edu.au
login: ftp
password: <your email address >
cd pubfiles
To download a specific call file
bin
get <the name of the call file >
To download all call files
bin
mget *.bin
To download the file listing the contents of the library
ascii
get content.txt

Access via WWW

html file:
URL: http://www.csu.edu.aubatcall1.html

WWW browsers do not accept # in a filename, because this character is used by the URL for internal reference. The files in the directory end with the extension bin. Only files ending with a # will be recognized by the ANABAT program. Therefore you have to rename the downloaded files. At the DOS prompt simply type in the directory containing the downloaded call files:

ren *.bin *.00#

How to contribute to the library

Contributors agree to make their files available for public access through the internet. You can send your files via email as encoded in mime or in uuencoded format to the following email address:
aherr@csu.edu.au

Requirements for the contribution to the bat reference call library

Reference call files must have been created using the ANABAT2 or ANABAT5 program and therefore stored in the ANABAT2 format. If you have an older version of ANABAT please convert the files with the program filecon.exe. This DOS program converts ANABAT1 files into the newer ANABAT2 format within the same directory. The newest version of ANABAT can be downloaded from this server.

The files must meet the following requirements:

Only captured and positively identified bats are recorded
The text header of the files must contain the following:
Header field  | Content                  | Necessary
---------------------------------------------------- 
Tape          | Name of the tape         | No
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
Date          | Date of recording        | Yes
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
Loc           | Latidude and longitude   |
              | of location where bat    | Yes
              | was captured             | 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
Species       | Genus and species name   | Yes
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
Spec          | Age, Sex and additional  | No
              |        specification     | 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
Note          | Contributor and method   | Yes
              | of capture               |
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
Note1         | Additional information   | No
              | of capture location      |

Example of a header file

Example of ANABAT header

Copyrights:

All files available in this library are for scientific use only. The files are not to be sold or distributed for profit. If you use the files for your research it is required that you cite the source of the files in all subsequent publications, in the following manner:

Herr, A. & Klomp, N. I. (eds) (1995): South-eastern Australian bat call library
URL: http://www.csu.edu.aubatcall1.html

Disclaimer:

These files may not be commercially distributed, licensed, resold, or otherwise transferred for any consideration, or reproduced for any such commercial purposes. The files are provided to the user "as is". Neither the authors nor Charles Sturt University give any warranties, either expressed or implied, with respect to the files, including but not limited to any warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, nor warranty against infringement. Neither the authors nor Charles Sturt University shall be liable for any claims or damages whatsoever, including property damage, personal injury, intellectual property infringement, loss of profits, or interruption of business, or for any special, consequential or incidental damages however caused, whether from the use of these files or any files created with them.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Lawrie Conole for his review of the batcall homepage and Chris Corben, who made the ANABAT5 programs publicly available.

References

Kutt, A. (1993) Notes on recording reference sequences of bat echolocation calls and bat activity at different height levels. Australasian Bat Society Newsletter 2: 16-23.

Richards, G. (1993) NABU: A National Archive of Bat Ultrasound. Australasian Bat Society Newsletter 2: 2-3.

Richards, G., Hall, L., Hoye, G., Lumsden, L., Parnaby, H., Reardon, T., Strahan, R., Thomson, B., Tidemann, C. (1993) A revision of the inventory and English names of Australian bats. Australasian Bat Society Newsletter 2: 8-9.

Retrieve

files via list form

Content file:
URL: http://www.csu.edu.aufiles/content.txt

Your comments or suggestions are genuinely welcomed

to: aherr@csu.edu.au

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Links to other Bat Call Libraries

Pacific North West Bat Call Library

New Mexico Bat Survey and Acoustic Library


Links to other bat sites

Links to other Documents
the south-eastern Australian batcall library. Publications on bats Herry's connection to other bat sites
Disclaimer
Australasian bat society on-line Private ANABAT call exchange page


Links to other Documents

to WWW-Charles Sturt University
to the Johnstone Centre of Parks, Recreation and Heritage

HTTP information

South-eastern Australian bat call library *** URL: http://www.csu.edu.au/.WWW/batcall/batcall1.html ***
created Mai 1995 by Alexander Herr (email: aherr@csu.edu.au) and Nicholas Klomp ( email: nklomp@csu.edu.au)*** Johnstone Centre, Charles Sturt University ***