Chaerephon pumilus (Cretzschmar, 1826)

Cakenberghe, Victor Van, Tungaluna, Guy-Crispin Gembu, Akawa, Prescott Musaba, Seamark, Ernest & Verheyen, Erik, 2017, The bats of the Congo and of Rwanda and Burundi revisited (Mammalia: Chiroptera), European Journal of Taxonomy 382 (382), pp. 1-327 : 58

Chaerephon pumilus (Cretzschmar, 1826)

Fig. 26 E–F

Dysopes pumilus Cretzschmar, 1826: 69 .

* Tadarida (Chaerephon) pumila (Cretzschmar, 1826) .

Hayman et al. (1966: 62, map 95) reported this species from almost over the entire CRB area, with the exception of the northwestern and central parts of the DRC. The only more central locality is Stanleyville (= Kisangani, Tshopo Province), where a single specimen was collected in the 19 th century (RMCA 283). The additional records, we have found, seem to confirm this distribution. The distribution map given by Happold (2013v: 529) shows two main areas where C. pumilus occurs: one in West Africa, where it occurs from Senegal to Nigeria and northern Cameroon, although lacking in the coastal forest, and a second in eastern Africa, from the Red Sea coast in Eritrea over eastern Sudan, South Sudan and western Ethiopia, eastern DRC, Zambia, northern Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique to northeastern RSA. It also occurs in southern Kenya, reaching the coast, going north into Somalia and south into Tanzania and Mozambique. Furthermore, she indicates a peculiar extension across the southern DRC to reach the Atlantic coast in Cabinda and Angola, and going south almost to the border with Namibia. ACR (2016: 387, 1135) mentions additional records from Cameroon, Gabon and Congo which narrow the gap between the western and eastern distribution ranges. However, there still seems to be a gap in the north between 20° and 25° E in Chad, Sudan, Central African Republic and the DRC (with the exception of the single specimen from Kisangani), which might continue further in central and eastern Angola and Namibia towards the RSA. This would suggest that the western DRC specimens, as well as those from Angola, might be closer related to the specimens from western Africa than to those from the eastern part of the distribution area. A connection between the western and eastern populations might indeed be along the line suggested by Happold (2013v), but it might also be that the specimens from the Kasaï Provinces are the easternmost representatives of the western populations or the westernmost representatives of the eastern populations.

Figures

Fig. 26. Distribution maps. A–B. Chaerephon major (Trouessart, 1897). C–D. Chaerephon nigeriae Thomas, 1913. E–F. Chaerephon pumilus (Cretzschmar, 1826). A, C, E. Distribution in the CRB area. B, D, F. Pan-African distribution.