Bat occurrences from Bulgaria

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 10,203 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:

Toshkova N, Brosens D, Stoeva E, Deleva S, Zhelyazkova V, Acosta-Pankov I, Goranov S, Dundarova H, Lakovski K, Genova O, Stoicheva S, Krushkova V, Ivanov A, Mechev A, Hubancheva A, Pavlova A, Metcheva R, Popov V, Beltcheva M, Pandurski I, Kisimov T, Kolev M, Kirov K, Karaganchev A, Karadakov V, Trendafilova S, Pavlova B, Yankov L, Stoyanov S, Yankov Y, Atanasov T, Georgieva T, Borisov I, Dilovski G, Dicheva A, Titorenkova S, Aleksandrova I, Delchev S, Sirakov K, Bradley I, Pazderkov D, Atanasov V, Zhelev P, Dechev A, Dimitrova K, Koseva K, Petrov B (2025). Bat occurrences from Bulgaria. Version 1.5. National Museum of Natural History, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Occurrence dataset. https://cloud.gbif.org/eca/resource?r=bat-occurrences-bulgaria&v=1.5

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

The publisher and rights holder of this work is National Museum of Natural History, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. To the extent possible under law, the publisher has waived all rights to these data and has dedicated them to the Public Domain (CC0 1.0). Users may copy, modify, distribute and use the work, including for commercial purposes, without restriction.

GBIF Registration

This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: 6b2a3042-db4f-4bf2-85a4-0301654a083a.  National Museum of Natural History, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by GBIF Bulgaria.

Keywords

Occurrence; bat; Chiroptera; Bulgaria; Observation

Contacts

Geographic Coverage

Bulgaria

Taxonomic Coverage

This dataset covers organisms belonging to the order Chiroptera (bats). It includes occurrence records of various bat species found in Bulgaria. In Bulgaria, bats are represented by four families: Vespertilionidae, Rhinolophidae, Miniopteridae, and Molossidae. The family Vespertilionidae is the most diverse and includes 26 species from several genera, such as Myotis, Barbastella, Eptesicus, Hypsugo, Nyctalus, Pipistrellus, Plecotus, and Vespertilio; the family Rhinolophidae, represented by 5 species; Miniopteridae represented by a single species; and Molossidae represented by one species.

Temporal Coverage

Project Data

The region of the Balkans is identified as a European biodiversity hot spot. The Balkans include part of Croatia, the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Greece, Bulgaria and the European part of Turkey. The Balkans is part of the Mediterranean Key Biodiversity Area (KBA). However, the biodiversity in the Balkans is threatened. More and more Balkan countries open their economies and become more accessible and attractive for large international investors and tourists. This causes major landscape changes. Agriculture is intensifying, infrastructure is being modernised and expanding at an accelerated pace, hydroelectric power stations in rivers are build, etc. Reliable data on species occurrence is needed for evidence-based conservation and management and further research on the biodiversity in the Balkans. Unfortunately, only a small amount of the geographically referenced species occurrence data from the Balkans is available. Baseline data on many groups like mammals, insects, plants, reptiles and amphibians are absent. With this project, we aim to mobilise data from the Balkans. Species specialists from five Balkan countries will be trained in data mobilisation. By promoting, communicating, and training researchers, the project will demonstrate the importance of FAIR data availability, aiming at mainstreaming biodiversity data publication in the region. The target is publishing more than 100.000 records, which will increase the number of published data on mammals, birds, insects, fish, reptiles and amphibians by at least 10%. The results of this project will also be published in Biodiversity Data Journal (Pensoft Publishers).

The personnel involved in the project:

Sampling Methods

The dataset was compiled using a variety of sampling methods. The primary method involved direct observation of bats at underground and above-ground roosts, including abandoned buildings, bat boxes, and natural structures. In addition, bats were captured using mist nets and harp traps, particularly during field surveys at roost entrances, active foraging areas, and flying corridors. Acoustic monitoring was also employed, using both passive (stationary detectors) and active (manual recording) techniques to detect species presence in areas where physical capture was not feasible or appropriate. All bat calls were manually identified by experts to ensure reliable species-level identification. Additional data were collected from two bat rehabilitation centres, as well as from deceased individuals and bat skulls identified through museum and field collections. All data were collected, georeferenced, and organized by the authors. Subsequent data cleaning and post-processing were conducted to ensure taxonomic accuracy, remove duplicate records, and standardise geographic information in accordance with GBIF data publishing standards.

Method step description:

1. 1. Data collection: оccurrence data were gathered from multiple sources, including field surveys, acoustic monitoring, roost inspections, bat rehabilitation centers, deceased specimens, and literature reviews. All observations were recorded with associated metadata where available (e.g., date, locality, habitat type, method). 2. Species identification and validation: species identifications were performed or verified by qualified bat researchers. Acoustic recordings were reviewed and manually identified using reference call libraries. 3. Data digitisation: historical and literature-based records were digitised manually. Field data were entered into structured digital formats using spreadsheets and databases. 4. Georeferencing: all locality information was georeferenced using GPS data or estimated based on place names and mapped features. Coordinates were assigned in decimal degrees and validated using GIS tools. 5. Data cleaning and standardization: data were reviewed for errors, including invalid species names, date inconsistencies, and coordinate anomalies. Taxonomic names were standardized according to accepted references. Duplicate records were removed. 6. Formatting for GBIF: the cleaned dataset was structured according to the Darwin Core standard, ensuring compliance with GBIF formatting requirements. 7. Final review and publishing: the dataset underwent a final validation and quality control check before being published to the GBIF.

Bibliographic Citations

1. Benda, P., Ivanova, T., Horáček, I., Hanák, V., Červený, J., Gaisler, J., Georgieva, A., Petrov, B., & Vohralík, V. (2003). Bats (Mammalia: Chiroptera) of the eastern Mediterranean. Part 3. Review of bat distribution in Bulgaria. Acta Societatis Zoologicae Bohemicae, 67(4), 245-357.
2. Deleva, S., Kolev, N., Ivanov, A., Marinova, P., Petkov, N., & Natchev, N. (2025). Biodiversity Surveys Before Residential Building Renovations in Bulgaria with Emphasis on the Impact and Conservation of Building-Dwelling Fauna. Ecologies, 6(1), 22. https://doi.org/10.3390/ecologies6010022
3. Dundarova, H., & Popov, V. V. (2024). Bats at an Altitude above 2000 m on Pirin Mountain, Bulgaria. Animals, 14(1), 126. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani14010126
4. Popov, V. V. (2018). Bats in Bulgaria: Patterns of species distribution, richness, rarity, and vulnerability derived from distribution models. In Bats. IntechOpen. DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.73623

Additional Metadata