Mops (Xiphonycteris) spurrelli (Dollman, 1911)

Fig. 30 C–D

Xiphonycteris spurrelli Dollman, 1911: 211 .

*? Xiphonycteris spurrelli Dollman, 1911 .

Although Hayman et al. (1966: 8) did not mention this species explicitly in their ‘ Catalog of Species ’, they do include it with a question mark in their ‘Nominal List of Congo Bats ’, and in their key, referring to Koopman (1965: 31), who tentatively identified a skin from Luluabourg (= Kananga, Kasaï Central Province) as belonging to this species. The specimens from Butembo (Nord-Kivu Province) were reported as Tadarida (Mops) nanula, but were re-identified as belonging to spurrelli (see above). Further specimens belonging to this species were collected in the northwestern part of the DRC: Yalosemba (Mongala Province) and Tandala (Sud-Ubangi Province). Happold (2013x: 533) ignored the record from Luluabourg and also missed out on the northwestern DRC records, mentioning it only from the northeastern part of the country. Furthermore, she also plotted individual localities from the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Togo, western Côte d’Ivoire and southern Guinea, and three small areas in Cameroon, southern Ghana and the border area between Sierra Leone and Liberia. The SDM map is very similar, but we suspect the areas to be more continuous north of the Central African rainforest and the record from Luluabourg suggests it also occurs south of the rainforest. Whether it occurs in the forest itself is not yet clear.