Nycticeinops schlieffenii (Peters, 1860)

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 : 101

Nycticeinops schlieffenii (Peters, 1860)

Fig. 46 A–B

Nycticejus Schlieffenii Peters, 1860: 224 .

* Nycticeius (Scoteinus) schlieffeni Peters, 1860 .

* Nycticeius (Scoteinus) schlieffeni albiventer Thomas & Wroughton, 1908: 540 .

Based on the shape of the baculum, Hill & Harrison (1987: 254) created a new genus ( Nycticeinops ), which contains schlieffenii as the only species. Happold (2013 ag: 595) indicated that four subspecies were recognized by Hayman & Hill (1971: 36), but these are of dubious validity.

Hayman et al. (1966: 55–56, map 78) report schlieffenii from the northeastern part of the DRC, where they plotted three localities. Of these, Niangara needs to be removed as they stated on page 56 that Koopman (1965: 17) reassigned this specimen to Scotoecus hirundo hindei . Furthermore, Hayman et al. (1966) mention specimens from the southeastern part of the DRC (Tanganyika, Haut-Katanga and Haut- Lomami Provinces). The locality on Lake Tanganyika they mention is probably (Qua) Mpala, the type locality of Scotophilus minimus Noack, 1887 , but this specimen could not be traced and is, therefore, not included here. More to the west, they also mentioned a specimen from Luluabourg. In the collection of the Tervuren museum, there is also an additional specimen from “Bas Congo ” (RMCA 65b), which probably was overlooked by Hayman et al. (1966), as they report a Myotis bocagii from the same locality (RMCA 65). Recently, an additional specimen was collected by the team of the University of Kisangani at Aketi (Bas-Uélé Province).

The map presented by Happold (2013 ag: 595) shows two major distribution areas: the Sudanian woodlands in West Africa (from the Mauritanian-Senegalese border in the west to Nigeria and northern Cameroon in the east). The second area covers a major part of eastern Africa (from the coastal area in Sudan and Eritrea, splitting in two narrow stretches in Ethiopia, combining again to cover central Kenya, passing through central Tanzania to the southeastern DRC, Zambia, extending to the border between Angola and Namibia, Malawi, northern Zimbabwe, central and eastern Mozambique to the extreme northeastern RSA), also including a separate, small area in the northeastern DRC. The specimens reported here confirm the species’ presence in the two DRC regions, but also suggest that the species extends more to the west.

Figures

Fig. 46. Distribution maps. A–B. Nycticeinops schlieffenii (Peters, 1860). C–D. Pipistrellus grandidieri (Dobson, 1876). E–F. Pipistrellus hesperidus (Temminck, 1840). A, C, E. Distribution in the CRB area. B, D, F. Pan-African distribution.