KHANDALA RAILWAY TUNNEL

Herbert Daniel Gebauer - 30/03/2016

A disused railway tunnel on the Great Indian Peninsula Railway at Khandala is the home of bats (Chiroptera). SITUATION: In an unspecified spatial relation to –>Khandala Railway Tunnel. DESCRIPTION: BROSSET (1962c: 602 table): »Tunnel at Khandala … Deserted railway tunnel at the top of the Ghats. The bats gather in the large excavations of the walls and ceiling.« CAVE LIFE - bats (Chiroptera): BROSSET (1962a: 11 table) lists the presence »December to June« of a »big colony« of the Fulveous fruit bat (Pteropidae: Rousettus leschenaulti Desmarest 1820) which had been observed by the Jesuit brother A. Navarro in 1933-1940 at »Khandala in a disused rail tunnel, now not existing« — the colony, the tunnel is still there. BROSSET (1962a: 14): The Fulveous fruit bat (Rousettus leschenaulti Desmarest 1820) associates at Khandala with Rhinolophus lepidus Blyth 1844 and R. rouxi Temminck 1835. BROSSET (1962c: 596) reports Rhinolophus rouxi in numbers varying from a dozen to at least a thousand: »These bats occupied large excavations of the ceiling, where there is no light and no draught.«