Neoromicia guineensis ( Bocage, 1889 )

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 : 96-98

Neoromicia guineensis ( Bocage, 1889)

Fig. 44 A–B

Vesperus guineensis Bocage, 1889: 6 .

The two specimens assigned to this species were collected by Herbert Lang and James Paul Chapin, and were reported by Allen (1917: 445) as belonging to Eptesicus minutus minutus (Temminck, 1835) . Hayman et al. (1966: 47) refer to these specimens as “ Eptesicus minutus ”, indicating that the name minutus was used in a tentative sense. However Rosevear (1965: 255) pointed out that minutus Temminck, 1835 is a synonym of Eptesicus capensis . Koopman (1965: 15) tentatively identified these two specimens as Eptesicus pusillus , but Koopman (1975: 407) furthermore pointed out that pusillus was based on two sources: Leconte (1858) and Noack (1889). The former was found to be unidentifiable and the latter to be a synonym of Pipistrellus nanus . Koopman’s figure 39 indicates that the extralimital (to Sudan) specimen from northeastern DRC is considered to belong to Eptesicus guineensis .

Van Cakenberghe & Happold (2013d: 625) indicate that guineensis primarily occurs disjunctly north of the equator in a band from Senegal, Guinea, northern Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Burkina Faso, northern Togo and Benin, and in a second band on the border between Nigeria and Cameroon, reaching to southern Chad. Furthermore, it occurs in a few smaller areas in central Sudan, the border between South Sudan and Uganda and in northwestern DRC. There are also some isolated records from Liberia, Nigeria, and western and eastern Ethiopia. The identifications of the specimens from Congo and southern DRC were found to be erroneous.

Figures

Fig. 44. Distribution maps. A–B. Neoromicia guineensis (Bocage, 1889). C–D. Neoromicia nana (Peters, 1852). E–F. Neoromicia rendalli (Thomas, 1889). A, C, E. Distribution in the CRB area. B, D, F. Pan-African distribution.