Miniopterus natalensis (A. Smith, 1833)

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 : 73-75

Miniopterus natalensis (A. Smith, 1833)

Fig. 33 E–F

Vespertilio Natalensis A. Smith, 1833: 59 .

* Miniopterus schreibersi vicinior J.A. Allen, 1917: 450 .

* Miniopterus schreibersi villiersi Aellen, 1956: 890 .

Originally described as a subspecies of breyeri , vicinior was moved to M. natalensis by Sanborn (1936: 110). However, most later authors assigned the form to M. schreibersi , but we follow Simmons (2005: 521) and Monadjem et al. (2013: 138), who included it back in M. natalensis . On the other hand, Thorn et al. (2009: 49) included vicinior specimens from Uganda in M. fraterculus .

Aellen (1956) described villiersi as a subspecies of M. inflatus . Most recent authors, though, include it in M. schreibersii , but Fahr et al. (2006: 173), Decher et al. (2010: 170) and Schaer et al. (2013: 17416, suppl. 1) consider it a valid species, restricted to western Africa. Decher et al. (2016: 274, 276) are a bit dubious in using M. inflatus villiersi in their systematic review and M. villiersi in their discussion sections. Furthermore, Anciaux de Faveaux (1978a: 479) mentioned that he originally assigned all of his material to either Miniopterus inflatus villiersi or Miniopterus natalensis , but that – according to Felten and Aellen – actually almost all of his specimens belonged to Miniopterus schreibersi natalensis . Based on this, we consider the DRC villiersi specimens to represent M. natalensis .

See also Miniopterus fraterculus Thomas & Schwann, 1906 above.

Figures

Fig. 33. Distribution maps. A–B. Miniopterus inflatus Thomas, 1903. C–D. Miniopterus minor Peters, 1867. E–F. Miniopterus natalensis (A. Smith, 1833). A, C, E. Distribution in the CRB area. B, D, F. Pan-African distribution.