Scotophilus nigrita (Schreber, 1774)

Fig. 37 C–D

Vespertilio Nigrita Schreber, 1774: 171 .

* Scotophilus gigas Dobson, 1875: 122 .

Until Robbins (1978: 212), the largest representative of the genus Scotophilus was called S. gigas, whereas this should be S. nigrita, a name that had been used for the medium-sized African form for decades. Unfortunately, this led to confusion that left its mark on a lot of subsequent publications, where it wasn’t always clear whether nigrita was used to designate the large or the medium-sized form.

Hayman et al. (1966: 56, map 81) reported “ S. gigas ” from one locality: Albertville (= Kalemie) in Tanganyika Province. The only other specimen from the CRB area was collected in Bujumbura, Burundi.

With the exception of two small areas in Ghana, Happold (2013 am: 679) only plotted individual localities on her distribution map, which shows a major gap between the locality in western Nigeria (the easternmost for West Africa) and central Sudan. Further to the south, there are records from the DRC, coastal Kenya and Tanzania, and Mozambique. ACR (2016: 1120) provides some additional records from Niger, northern Cameroon, Sudan and South Sudan, which more or less bridge the gap between West Africa and Sudan, and which also may confirm the assignment of the Sudanese specimens to the nominate subspecies as mentioned by Happold (2013 am: 678). The SDM map also suggests that such a connection might well be possible through the Central African Republic and central Cameroon or through central Chad and northern Cameroon. Although the species hasn’t been confirmed from the central African rainforest, its occurrence in the West African forest block makes it plausible.