Description
This dataset includes bat records collected over several decades by various researchers mainly in Kharkiv city. The records were initially gathered by Professor A.S. Lysetskiy (Department of Zoology) from 1948 to 1991, followed by additional data collected by A. Vlaschenko from 1999 to 2007, with the involvement of K. Kravchenko, A. Prylutska, and others starting from 2008. The data was compiled and digitized by the Ukrainian Bat Rehabilitation Center (UBRC) team, coordinated by M. Yerofieieva, in 2024. This dataset focuses exclusively on bats that were found and subsequently examined by specialists. It provides valuable insights into the bat populations of Kharkiv and its surrounding regions, covering 5 species and a total of 5,844 individual bat records from 1948 to 2012. The dataset significantly contributes to the conservation and monitoring of bat populations in northeastern Ukraine.
Data Records
The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 5,844 records.
This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.
Versions
The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.
How to cite
Researchers should cite this work as follows:
Vlaschenko A, Kravchenko K, Yerofieieva M, Kulynych A, Putiatina V, Stohnii R, Prylutska A (2025). The dataset of bat (Chiroptera, Mammalia) records in the Kharkiv city area (NE Ukraine) in 1948-2012. Version 1.2. Ukrainian Bat Rehabilitation Center. Occurrence dataset. https://ukraine.ipt.gbif.no/resource?r=bats1948-2012&v=1.2
Rights
Researchers should respect the following rights statement:
The publisher and rights holder of this work is Ukrainian Bat Rehabilitation Center. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0) License.
GBIF Registration
This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: af266a23-3d6f-4438-8e81-deda21d6c38a. Ukrainian Bat Rehabilitation Center publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by Participant Node Managers Committee.
Keywords
Occurrence; Observation
Contacts
- Metadata Provider ●
- Originator
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0616-8050
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- Metadata Provider ●
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Geographic Coverage
The dataset includes occurrence records from Kharkiv city and its surrounding areas in northeastern Ukraine.
| Bounding Coordinates | South West [49.632, 36.115], North East [50.11, 36.457] |
|---|
Taxonomic Coverage
This dataset covers bats from the order Chiroptera. All the recorded bats belong to the family Vespertilionidae. In total, 5 bat species are represented in the dataset. The nomenclature for most species in the dataset has remained consistent over the past decade, and their taxonomic status is well-established (Dietz and Kiefer 2014). The exception is Pipistrellus pipistrellus, for individuals collected before 1999, was listed as Pipistrellus pipistrellus s.l. (species complex). Pipistrellus kuhlii (Kuhl, 1817), presented in Europe by two taxa well-distinguishable visually - Pipistrellus kuhlii kuhlii (Kuhl, 1817) and Pipistrellus kuhlii lepidus (Blyth, 1845) (Andriollo et al. 2015, Sachanowicz et al. 2017). However, there was not a clear view of the systematic status of these two taxa, do they just morphs or true subspecies (Sachanowicz et al. 2017). For the whole of the Ukrainian territory only P. k. lepidus was distinguished till now (Sachanowicz et al. 2017, Hukov et al. 2020). All the bats from P. kuhlii s.l. species group presented in this dataset belongs to P. k. lepidus.
| Kingdom | Animalia |
|---|---|
| Phylum | Chordata |
| Class | Mammalia |
| Order | Chiroptera |
| Family | Vespertilionidae |
Temporal Coverage
| Formation Period | 1948-10-09 / 2012-12-31 |
|---|
Project Data
The dataset was prepared under realization of two projects. The project "Preservation of Scientific Heritage of Nature Reserves and National Parks Affected by the War " was aimed on collecting, digitalization and preservation of data on biodiversity records in Ukraine.
| Title | Preservation of Scientific Heritage of Nature Reserves and National Parks Affected by the War |
|---|---|
| Identifier | 09-12-2024 |
| Funding | The project "Preservation of Scientific Heritage of Nature Reserves and National Parks Affected by the War " was implemented by the Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group with the support of the Goethe-Institut Ukraine, part of the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Ukraine. The project EU-3043 "Bat research stronghold: Investigating the Effects of Landscape Heterogeneity, Phenology, and the Impacts of Wartime on Bat Populations in Ukraine" was implemented by Ukrainian Bat Rehabilitation Center with the support of EURIZON FELLOWSHIP PROGRAMME Remote Research Grants. |
Sampling Methods
All records represent direct observations of bats that were either rescued or discovered during opportunistic encounters in buildings. The earliest records (1948–1991) were compiled by Prof. A.S. Lysetskiy (V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University). From 1999 to 2007, data collection was continued by A. Vlaschenko and collaborators. Each bat was examined in hand, with detailed data collected on species identity, sex, body measurements, and condition. No oral communications from citizens encountered bats are included in this dataset. Georeferencing The location of each bat record was recorded as precisely as possible (building, street and settlement level when available) and manually georeferenced using Gaia GPS online map and Google Maps API. When only the name of a settlement was available, the centroid of the polygon (based on official administrative boundaries) was used. Coordinate uncertainty was calculated in meters based on the radius of the polygon, using QGIS (QGIS Development Team 2009).
| Study Extent | The dataset includes direct records of bats that were physically found and handled by specialists between 1948 and 2012 in the city of Kharkiv and its surrounding areas. All individuals included in the dataset underwent examination by trained zoologists at the time of finding. |
|---|---|
| Quality Control | All bats included in this dataset were directly examined by qualified zoologists. For each individual, the species, sex, age class, forearm length (to 0.1 mm precision), and body mass (to 0.1 g) were recorded. When available, reproductive status was also assessed. Most individuals collected from the 2000s onward were fitted with uniquely numbered aluminium rings labeled “Kyiv, Ukraine” (Aranea, Poland). Recaptures of previously ringed individuals were recorded as separate events. Species identification followed standard European keys (Dietzitem-0 & Helversen 2004; Dietz & Kiefer 2014). In older cases or when morphological features were insufficient for exact species determination, identification was limited to the genus level. Records with doubtful identification were excluded from the final dataset to ensure taxonomic accuracy. |
Method step description:
- Field discovery: Bats were found during zoological surveys, incidental discoveries (e.g. in buildings), or bat rescue operations in Kharkiv and nearby settlements.
- Individual examination: Each bat was identified to species level, aged, sexed, and measured for forearm length and body mass.
- Ringing (if applicable): Since the early 2000s, most live bats were ringed with aluminium rings bearing a unique identifier.
- Manual georeferencing: Each record was assigned geographic coordinates based on locality descriptions using Google Maps.
- Data entry and cleaning: Records were digitized into standardized spreadsheets and processed using Darwin Core terms (Wieczorek et al. 2012). Data were further cleaned using OpenRefine (OpenRefine 2025) to ensure consistency and remove duplicates.
Bibliographic Citations
- Andriollo T, Naciri Y, Ruedi M (2015) Two mitochondrial barcodes for one biological species: the case of European Kuhl’s pipistrelles (Chiroptera). PLoS ONE, 10 (8), e0134881.
- Dietz C, Helversen O.von (2004) Illustrated identification key to the bats of Europe. Electronic Publication, Version 1.0. released 15.12.2004, Tuebingen & Erlangen (Germany).
- Dietz C, Kiefer A (2014) The Bats of Europe. Know, Identify, Protect [Die Fledermäuse Europas. Kennen, Bestimmen, Schützen] Kosmos Verlag, Stuttgart, 400 pp. [in German].
- Domanska A, Prylutska A, Vlaschenko A, Holovchenko O, Kovalov V, Orlenko A (2017) Bat treatment experience in Bat Rehabilitation Center of Feldman Ecopark in 2017 year. XXVI Ogólnopolska Konferencja Chiropterologiczna, Wiezyca, Poland 17-19 November 2017. Wiezyca, 44 pp.
- Hukov V, Timofieieva O, Prylutska A, Rodenko O, Moiseienko M, Bohodist V, Domanska A, Vlaschenko A (2020) Wintering of an urban bat (Pipistrellus kuhlii lepidus) in recently occupied areas. European Journal of Ecology, 6, 102–120 pp.
- Kravchenko K, Vlaschenko A, Prylutska A, Rodenko O, Hukov V, Shuvaev V (2017) Year-round monitoring of bat records in an urban area: Kharkiv (NE Ukraine), 2013, as a case study. Turkish Journal of Zoology, 41 (3), 530–548 pp.
- OpenRefine (2025) OpenRefine: A free, open source, powerful tool for working with messy data. 3.9.3.
- Sachanowicz K, Piskorski M, Tereba A (2017) Systematics and taxonomy of Pipistrellus kuhlii (Kuhl,1817) in Central Europe and the Balkans. Zootaxa, 4306 (1), 053–066 pp.
Additional Metadata
| Alternative Identifiers | af266a23-3d6f-4438-8e81-deda21d6c38a |
|---|---|
| https://ukraine.ipt.gbif.no/resource?r=bats1948-2012 |