Plecotus kolombatovici, Dulic, 1980

Sachanowicz, Konrad, Ciechanowski, Mateusz, Rachwald, Alek & Piskorski, Michał, 2015, Overview of bat species reported in Albania with the first country records for eight species, Journal of Natural History 50, pp. 513-521 : 518

Plecotus kolombatovici

Pishkash II (location same as above), 28 September 2005, 1 sexually active ♂ ad. netted at the entrance of a small cave in a limestone gorge. The morphological identification of this species was confirmed by genetic analysis (A. Kiefer, pers. comm.).

The two records of bats from the genus Plecotus ( Lamani 1970) could not be assigned to any particular species because of the lack of a detailed description and measurements. For the supposed Pl. kolombatovici record from the Treni Cave, at the Micro Prespa Lake in Albania ( 24–25 September 2012), no evidence has been provided to support the species identification and exclusion of other Plecotus species ( Scheffler et al. 2013). Plecotus kolombatovici has one of the smallest geographic ranges among the European bats; it has only been confirmed in Greece and along the Adriatic coast of Croatia ( Đulić 1980; Spitzenberger et al. 2006). The supposed records from Bosnia and Herzegovina are based on external and cranial measurements ( Đulić 1980; Červený and Kryštufek 1988) and apparently require confirmation with genetic methods. This new Albanian record indicates a wider occurrence of this species in the southwestern Balkans and its syntopic presence with Pl. austriacus .