Insectivores

In this paper, the insectivores, chiropterans and rodents from the middle Miocene site of Can Missert are described. The faunal list of this locality includes the following species: Miosorex grivensis, Desmanella sp., Talpidae indet., Vespertilionidae indet., Hispanomys daamsi, Megacricetodon minor, Megacricetodon ibericus, Fahlbuschia crusafonti, Democricetodon brevis nemoralis, Eumyarion medium, Muscardinus hispanicus, Eomuscardinus sp., Paraglirulus werenfelsi and Spermophilinus bredai. H. daamsi is a new Cricetodontine species which is characterized by complete ectolophs and relatively long third lower molars. The rodent association of Can Missert enable one to assign this locality to the late Aragonian, MN 8, being close in age to other localities in the Vallès-Penedès Basin such as Castell de Barberà. However, the proportion in which each species is represented is very different in the two cases. This evidence points to the existence climatic pulses at the end of the Aragonian Mammal-Stage.En este trabajo se describen los insectívoros, quirópteros y roedores del Mioceno medio de Can Missert, en la cuenca del Vallès-Penedès. La lista faunística de esta localidad incluye las siguientes especies: Miosorex grivensis, Desmanella sp., Talpidae indet., Vespertilionidae indet., Hispanomys daamsi, Megacricetodon minor, Megacricetodon ibericus, Fahlbuschia crusafonti, Democricetodon brevis nemoralis, Eumyarion medium, Muscardinus hispanicus, Eomuscardinus sp., Paraglirulus werenfelsi y Spermophilinus bredai. H. daamsi constituye una nueva especie de Cricetodontinae, caracterizada por presentar ectolofos completos y un tercer molar inferior relativamente largo. La asociación de Can Missert permite asignar esta localidad al Aragoniense superior, MN 8, comparable a otras localidades del Vallès-Penedès como Castell de Barberà. Sin embargo, la proporción en que las distintas especies de roedores aparecen representadas en Can Missert es muy diferente de Castell de Barberà, indicando la existencia de importantes pulsos climáticos al final del Aragoniense.

We report a new dimylid species, Plesiodimylus ilercavonicus sp. nov., from the Early Miocene locality of Mas d’Antolino B-5 (Ribesalbes-Alcora, Castelló, Spain). This new species of Plesiodimylus is an amblyodont form of the genus and exhibits some primitive characters. The phylogenetic and palaeoenvironmental implications of this southern occurrence of Plesiodimylus in Lower Miocene sediments are discussed.

Noisy miners, Manorina melanocephala (Australian honeyeaters, Meliphagidae) feed on both nectar and
invertebrates. The spatiotemporal distributions of these two food resources differ: nectar is a static,
visually signalled resource, and invertebrates are cryptic and mobile. In the present study, we investigated
whether birds would forage more efficiently if they could plan their search path through a ‘patch’
of feeders, than if they could not. We predicted that the ability to plan would only increase the efficiency
of nectar foraging. Wild-caught captive birds were allowed to forage through arrays of feeders containing
both nectar (sucrose) and invertebrate (mealworm) prey. When foraging for nectar, birds made more
search errors if they were unable to plan their foraging route, while search efficiency for invertebrate
prey was not affected in this way. These results suggest that noisy miners make use of the advertised
locations of nectar to plan their search route. Such route planning may be a type of planning that does
not involve anticipation of future motivational states.

Recent attempts to integrate function and mechanism have resulted in an appreciation of the relevance of forager psychology to understanding the functional aspects of foraging behaviour. Conversely, an acknowledgement of the functional diversity of learning mechanisms has led to greater understanding of the adaptive nature of cognition. In this paper, we present data from three experiments suggesting that noisy miner birds use different cognitive strategies when searching for foods with different distributions. When searching for nectar, an immobile, readily depleted resource, birds spontaneously attend to fine-scale spatial information and use a spatial memory-based strategy that is efficient in a novel context and largely resistant to disruptions to movement. When searching for invertebrates, a mobile, clumped and cryptic resource, birds employ a strategy whose efficiency increases with increased task familiarity, is vulnerable to disruptions to their movement and may rely more on memory for movement rules than memory for location information. Previous reports of adapted cognition have reported performance differences between species (for example, better spatial cognitive performance in storing versus non-storing birds). Ours is the first study to demonstrate that differences in cognitive strategy (as opposed to just enhanced performance) occur within a single species in different foraging contexts. As
well as providing an example of how specially adapted cognitive mechanisms might work, our data further emphasise
the importance of jointly considering functional and mechanistic aspects to fully understand the adaptive complexities of behaviour.

Tree cavities play a critical role in the life history of cavity-using species and thus are an important structural feature of forests. This is the first study to address cavity resources in tropical montane cloud forests in Sri Lanka. Therefore, nest-site availability of cavity nesting bird species was studied at the Montane Cloud Forests of Horton Plains, situated in the highland plateau of the Nuwara Eliya district. Study was conducted from September 2016 to May 2018 in three consecutive days per month. Two habitats were selected as Cloud Forest (CF) and Cloud Forest Die-back (CFD). Line transect method was used. All cavities were recorded and locations were marked using GPS device. Cavity nests were located by searching the vegetation along transects. Tree species, nest cavity height, diameter at breast height (DBH) were measured. Greater flameback (Chrysocolaptes iucidus) and Red-backed wood peacker (Dinopium benghalense psarodes, Lesser yellownape (Celeus brachyurus jerdonii), provided different sizes of nest cavities for a suite of non-excavator species like Dull-blue flycatcher (Eumyias sordidus), Velvet-fronted nuthatch (Sitta frontalis), Sri Lanka yellow-fronted barbet (Megalaima flavifrons).Total of 354 tree cavities were located. Live trees and snags with DBH >45cm were favored as nest sites by all species. This study indicates that cavities are an uncommon feature even in pristine habitats with only 4.5% of the trees harboring cavities in both habitat types. Even more uncommon are potentially usable cavities for avian cavity nesters. Only 2.98% of the trees have a potentially usable cavity in the CF and only 1.42% in the CFD. In CFD there is a significantly lower density of potentially usable cavities (2.98 vs. 2.8 cavities/ha in CF and 1.42 vs. 1.1 cavities/ha in CFD). More specifically, in the CFD, large, decaying Rhododendron arboreum have a relatively greater probability of having potentially usable cavities, while in the cloud forest potentially usable cavities are disproportionably found in large, decaying Cinnamomum ovalifolium. Neolitsea fuscata, Glochidion pycnocarpum were the other possible species with cavities. In both habitats, snags are also very likely to harbor a potentially usable cavity. In order for habitats of the montane regain and some of their ecological value, it is necessary to protect the trees with highest probability of becoming usable cavity trees. CFD habitats were much more extensive than CF habitats, but birds strongly preferred CF as nesting habitats, presumably due to the availability of nesting sites. Since the cloud forests of Sri Lanka are under various threats and specifically since the cloud forest of the Horton Plains are susceptible to forest die back every action should be taken to preserve the cloud forests as they present the last habitat for most montane avifauna throughout the island.

For the first time, the heterosoricid genus Dinosorex from the Iberian Peninsula has been studied in detail. Dental morphology and measurements match the original descriptionof the species Dinosorex grycivensis Rzebik-Kowalska and Topachevsky, 1997. This is the first time that the species is reported in southwestern Europe. Biostratigraphically, the last occurrences of Dinosorex in the Vallès-Penedès basin coincide with the transition from early to late Vallesian, together with the first occurrences of the murid Progonomys, at about 9.6 Ma. This is close in time to the estimated moment of final extinction for the genus. From an evolutionary point of view, it is remarkable that in the more than forty localities in the Vallès-Penedès Basin, spanning three million years, there are no apparent morphological changes. Notably, to date, no occurrences have been reported in central Europe that could link the Ukrainian and Iberian assemblages biogeographically. Theseresults clearly highlight the need of revision of other European forms to place the Iberian finds in a broader scenario in order to fully comprehend the factors driving the evolutionand ultimately extinction of the “terror-shrews”.