Abstract:
For forty years, there has been growing uncertainty about whether Hill's horseshoe bat
(Rhinolophus hilli) still persists in Nyungwe National Park, Rwanda. Only known from one
small area within the National Park, R. hilli is listed as Critically Endangered by the
International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), based on its extremely small geographic range and presumed low number of mature individuals. Here, we present and
describe bat species occurrence data contributed to the Global Biodiversity Information
Facility (GBIF) that we collected as part of a long-term collaborative project to rediscover
this lost species. This data paper describes the survey methods and findings resulting from
cave roost surveys, capture surveys, and acoustic sampling of bat echolocation activity in
Nyungwe National Park and surrounding areas in south-western Rwanda from 2013-2020
and their conservation relevance.
