65. Common Whiskered Myotis, Myotis mystacinus (Kuhl, 1817)

(IUCN Red List: LC)

Subspecies: Monotypic species.

Distribution: Rare; confined to the mountain habitat in southwest Syria (Fig. 72).

Previous records: Only one record is available from Mount Hermon (Benda & KarataȘ 2005).

Remarks: Bats of the M. mystacinus morpho-group represent a phylogenetically complex matter. The Levantine populations were formerly assigned to M. aurascens Kuzyakin, 1935 [= M. davidii (Peters, 1869)] based on their large body size (see Benda & KarataȘ 2005). The revision of the Middle Eastern and Caucasian populations of the morpho-group showed that these bats should belong to M. mystacinus (see Benda et al. 2016).