New confirmed record of Diclidurus albus Wied-Neuwied, 1820, Northern Ghost Bat (Mammalia, Chiroptera, Emballonuridae), in northern Costa Rica

. We provided a new occurrence report with ecological notes of Diclidurus albus Wied-Neuwied, 1820, from Costa Rica. Two individuals were found roosting in the roof of a cabin of the Luna Nueva Hotel ecolodge in Peñas Blancas, San Ramón, Alajuela, Costa Rica. We provide a distribution map of previous visual sightings and the new record of this bat species from Costa Rica.

Diclidurus albus is a poorly known species; not much is known about its biology, ecology, and distribution (Eisenberg and Redford 1999;Emmons and Feer 1999;Hood and Gardner 2008). It hunts mainly above the canopy and above the ground in open areas. Therefore, D. albus is rarely caught using mist nets (Ceballos and Medellín 1988;Reid 2009), and it is mainly recorded by echolocation (Jung et al. 2007). This species prefers humid habitats like riparian and tropical rainforests, but it also has been found in human-disturbed areas like plantations, clearings, and villages (Ceballos and Medellin 1988). Individuals of this species are solitary, and like all members of the family, they are insectivorous (Ceballos and Medellin 1988).
In Costa Rica, D. albus is rare and distributed at low and middle elevations, from sea level to 1,500 m, on both the Pacific and Atlantic slopes and in the Central Valley (Goodwin 1946;Starrett and Casebeer 1968;LaVal and Rodríguez 2002). There are few occurrence records of this species in Costa Rica (Wilson 1983;Timm 1989;Rodriguez and Chinchilla 2002;Herrera-Rodríguez et al. 2014), and it has never been recorded in northwestern Costa Rica (Wainwright 2007). We report a new occurrence record, along with ecological notes, of D. albus in the Tilarán mountain range in northwestern Costa Rica.

Methods
The presence of the two individuals of Diclidurus albus was recorded using a Samsung Galaxy A71 smartphone. We deposited photographic records of the individuals in the Digital Catalog of the Museum of Zoology of the National University of Costa Rica (UNA-MZM). The individuals were identified following Ceballos and Medellín (1988), LaVal and Rodríguez (2002), Jung et al. (2007), and Hood and Gardner (2008). Individuals were not sexed because they were not captured. The observation includes habitat characteristics, activity time, and distance between the two individuals. In addition, we provide an updated database of distributional records based on museum specimens and other published and unpublished records from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF 2022; Appendix Table A1).

Identification. Following
Cabrera (1958) regarded D. scutatus as a synonym of D. albus, but currently these species are treated as separate species (Hood and Gardner 2008). Although these two species are sympatric in South America, and allopatric in Central America and externally similar, D. albus is easily distinguished from D. scutatus by its longer forearm (60-70 mm), the complete posterior margin of the palate, and the lack of a large fenestra in the palate (Hood and Gardner 2008). Although we did not capture and examine the individuals observed, it is not possible to confuse them with D. scutatus or D. ingens since these species are not distributed as far north; D. scutatus occurs in southeastern Colombia (Velasco et al. 2021) and the northeasternmost occurrence of D. ingens is in Puerto Ayacucho, Amazonas, in Venezuela (Handley 1976).

Discussion
Despite the large geographic range of Diclidurus albus in Costa Rica (Lim et al. 2016;Reid and Gómez 2022), A B Wainwright (2007) suggested that this species may also be present in some areas, such as the northern region. Even though D. albus probably occurs in these areas, there is no evidence to support its presence there. Occurrence records of this species are few and localized, and few specimens had been preserved in museums (Appendix Table A1). Diclidurus albus has mostly been recorded in lowlands on the Pacific and Caribbean slopes, with few records in the highlands and the central mountain range in Costa Rica ( Fig. 2; GBIF 2021).
Additionally, observations on the natural history of D. albus are few. This bat species prefers roosting in vegetation with large leaves, like palms (Ceballos and Medellín 1988;Hood and Gardner 2008), but some individuals also roost in human constructions (Moscoso and Tirira 2009;Gómez-Corea et al. 2020). Our new record complements the little knowledge available on the distribution of D. albus in northern Costa Rica, and it corroborates the presence of this species in human settlements.
According to Ceballos and Medellin (1988), D. albus does not form colonies and are found in small groups only during the breeding season in January to February. It has been seen roosting singly by day, except when aggregating into breeding groups, beneath the fronds of coconut palms. At the onset of the reproductive season, small groups consisting of a male and several females roost together (Hood and Gardner 2008). Although our observation includes two individuals, their sexes could not be determined because we did not capture the bats. The reported breeding season of this species does not coincide with the time (late August) when we observed our individuals, which indicates that they may not be a breeding couple.
The distribution of D. albus in Costa Rica is restricted to very limited localities, where local habitat disturbance may have a negative effect on the ecology of species. Our new record contributes to the limited knowledge on this uncommon bat species, providing additional ecological and distributional information for this species in Costa Rica. However, acoustic monitoring and habitat modeling are still needed due to the inconspicuous habits and difficulty recording D. albus in the field.