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During the last 60 years, 34 cases of aberrant colouration in bats of the following species have been recorded in Poland: Rhinolophus hipposideros, Myotis daubentonii, Myotis mystacinus, Myotis nattereri, Myotis myotis, Eptesicus serotinus, Barbastella barbastellus and Plecotus auritus. The largest number of aberrant colouration cases was recorded during the hibernation period in the Nietoperek bat reserve, western Poland (0.016% individuals with albinism). In 2014, five individuals with partial albinism and one flavistic bat were found there. Proportion of individuals with albinism varied from 0.05% in the case of M. nattereri, 0.02% in the case of M. daubentonii and only 0.007% in the case of M. myotis. During the studies on bat swarming in the Tatra Mountains one case of leucistic whiskered bat was recorded which accounts for 0.016% out of over 5,900 representatives of this species that were caught. Aberrant colouration in bats is rarely recorded in Poland and it is not associated with any particular geographical region. Higher probability of observing atypically coloured individuals occurs in large populations of bats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

he paper presents breeding records of the barbastelle (Barbastella barbastellus) from the whole current territory of Poland, both published data from papers and conference abstracts, and unpublished data collected by the authors. Up to 1999, known locations of maternity colonies and sites where young or lactating females had been caught, were assigned to only five forest regions or 16 Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) squares. The number of such sites has significantly increased since 2000. Breeding sites of barbastelle have now been recorded in all Polish forest regions in 68 UTM squares. Most of the barbastelle sites were located in forest stands with high proportions of beech and oak (65%, N=46), and/or old-growth forest (over 32%, N=23). The highest elevation of a breeding site was at about 500 m.a.s.l. This paper summarises new records of maternity colonies of barbastelles for the first time, as a preliminary step to develop a more comprehensive conservation and monitoring plan for this near-threatened species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]