58. Schreibers’s Long-fingered Bat, Miniopterus schreibersii (Natterer, 1817)

(IUCN Red List: VU)

Subspecies: Monotypic species.

Distribution: Uncommon; confined to caves of rocky plains and mountainous habitat of the Euphrates Valley, vicinity of Aleppo, and western parts of the country. (Fig. 65)

Previous records: Aleppo (von Wettstein 1913), Qater Maghara and ar-Raqqah (Ebenau 1996), ar-Raqqah (Walter & Ebenau 1997), Latakia, Slenfeh, Tell Shhab, Aleppo, Qal’at Al-Hosson, Safita, and Mount Hermon (Benda et al. 2006), Hamama (Shehab et al. 2007), Abu Qubays (Daoud & Khalil 2009a).

Recent record: Al-Hweiz (2020).

Remarks: Long-fingered bats occupying Southwest Asia were split into two species occurring also in the Levant (Bilgin et al. 2012). However, only M. schreibersii has been confirmed in Syria (and Lebanon), while M. pallidus Thomas, 1907 was found in Turkey and Jordan (Šrámek et al. 2013). While the range of the latter species remains unresolved in the Levant, although it very likely occurs in Syria, we decided to report all records from Syria under M. schreibersii .