Rhinolophus guineensis Eisentraut, 1960

Decher, Jan, Hoffmann, Anke, Schaer, Juliane, N Orris, Ryan W., Kadjo, Blaise, Astrin, Jonas, Monadjem, Ara & Hutterer, Rainer, 2015, Bat diversity in the Simandou Mountain Range of Guinea, with the description of a new white-winged vespertilionid, Acta Chiropterologica 17 (2), pp. 255-282 : 264

Rhinolophus guineensis Eisentraut, 1960

New material

ZFMK 2008.0281 , ♀, PF, 17 March 2008 ; ZFMK 2009.0020 , ♀, PF, 9 December 2008 ; ZFMK 2009.0022 , ♂ and ZFMK 2009.0023 , ♀, WSV, 12 December 2008 .

The two individuals at PF were caught at the western edge of a small patch of submontane forest among large boulders, which probably served as roosting places for this species. Three specimens at WSV were caught flying over the creek. The 2002 RAP documented R. guineensis from both high elevation W2 and lowland BK, and the 2003 RAP encountered it at Déré and Mt. Béro Forest Reserves (Fahr and Ebigbo, 2004; Fahr et al., 2006). Brosset (1984) reported two torpid specimens between 1,450 and 1,600 m at Mount Nimba, and it was the most abundant Rhinolophus captured above 1,400 m on Guinean Mount Nimba ( Denys et al., 2013). It has been recorded from several localities in the Fouta Djallon, most of them associated with caves (Eisentraut and Knorr, 1957; Konstantinov et al., 2000; Weber and Fahr, 2007 b; Fahr, 2013 f). Rhinolophus guineensis was described by Eisentraut (1960) as a large subspecies ( FA = 46 mm) of R. landeri , but Böhme and Hutterer (1978) showed that the two morphologically distinct subspecies R. l. guineensis and R. l. landeri should be treated as separate species. Two females caught at PF and WSV in December carried embryos of 6 and 10 mm crown-rump length, respectively. Konstantinov et al. (2000) reported a female with a small embryo in March in a cave near Kindia, Guinea. In Senegal the species was found twice roosting in hollow trees (Böhme and Hutterer, 1978).

Conservation status

Vulnerable. IUCN Justification: “because its area of occupancy is probably less than 2,000 km ² (roosting caves), its distribution is severely fragmented, there is continuing decline in the extent and quality of its forest and cave habitats.” Population trend is unknown ( IUCN, 2015).