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We report the first record of the rare Koepcke's spear-nosed bat Gardnerycteris koepckeae collected outside of Peru, based on morphological and cytochrome b data. The species was found at the National Natural Park Alto Fragua Indi-Wasi, Department of Caquetá, Colombia. This record extended the species distribution 1400 km north from the northernmost known locality in Huanhuachayo, Ayacucho, Peru. This finding suggests that G. koepckeae is distributed over middle elevations along the eastern slope of the Andean-Amazonia foothills in Peru and Colombia, similar to other Phyllostomid bats, such as Vampyressa melissa and Lonchophylla handleyi. We reviewed the threatened category of G. koepckeae, currently categorized as Data Deficient (DD), according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), but considered as Endangered (EN) in recent papers. Based on this new record, we suggest that the species should be included in future assessments as Near Threatened (NT) or Vulnerable (VU) based on its wider distribution along the Andean-Amazonian foothills of Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, and probably the Orinoco slope of the Andes of Colombia and Venezuela. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The access to the high resolution digital terrain models (DEM) generated from the data collected by the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) of NASA is freely available to the public. Consequently it has become a source of topographic information which is of great value to scientists involved in geophysical or geodetic analysis. Despite the efforts of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), to validate and complement the information contained in these DEMs (currently offered as version 4.1), they still need to be checked for their accuracy in certain regions of the planet. In this paper, the vertical accuracy of the SRTM 3" version 4.1 DEM was analyzed in several areas of Peru using two sets of control points: the height of the district capitals (the minor politics units) and the heights of the weather and hydrological stations from the National Meteorology and Hydrology Service (SENAMHI) of Peru. The comparison shows that the height differences are independent of the altitude, latitude and longitude of the evaluated points. They are rather related to the aspect of the terrain and to the way the SRTM data were acquired. It shows that the mean square of the height differences at national level was ±20 m for district capitals and ±25 m for the SENAMHI stations. This is slightly larger than the overall accuracy of the SRTM ±16 m. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]