Otonycteris hemprichii Peters 1859

Otonycteris hemprichii Peters 1859, Monatsb. K. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, 1859: 223.

Type Locality: Restricted by Kock (1969 a) to the Nile Valley between north of Aswan, Egypt and Chondek, Sudan .

Vernacular Names: Hemprich's Desert Bat.

Synonyms: Otonycteris brevimanus Severtzov 1873; Otonycteris cinerea Satunin 1909; Otonycteris jin Cheesman and Hinton 1924; Otonycteris leucophaeus Severtzov 1873; Otonycteris petersi Anderson and de Winton 1902; Otonycteris saharae Laurent 1936; Otonycteris ustus Fitzinger and Heuglin 1866 .

Distribution: The desert zone from Morocco and Niger through Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq to Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, and Kashmir.

Conservation: IUCN 2003 and IUCN / SSC Action Plan (2001) – Lower Risk (lc).

Discussion: Reviewed by Harrison and Bates (1991), Horácek (1991), and Bates and Harrison (1997). Several subspecies are sometimes recognized (e.g., Harrison and Bates, 1991; Koopman, 1994), but Horácek (1991) and Horácek et al. (2000) have argued that geographic variation in size and coloration is clinal and therefore does not support recognition of local populations as subspecies.