Pipistrellus cf. grandidieri (Dobson, 1876)

Decher, Jan, Hoffmann, Anke, Schaer, Juliane, N Orris, Ryan W., Kadjo, Blaise, Astrin, Jonas, Monadjem, Ara & Hutterer, Rainer, 2015, Bat diversity in the Simandou Mountain Range of Guinea, with the description of a new white-winged vespertilionid, Acta Chiropterologica 17 (2), pp. 255-282 : 273-274

Pipistrellus cf. grandidieri (Dobson, 1876)

New material

ZFMK 2008.0300 , ♀, FC, 8 March 2008 ; ZFMK 2008.0301 , ♂, FC, 9 March 2008 ; ZFMK 2008 . 0302, ♂, W1, 25 February 2008 .

One individual was caught in the canopy net set over the creek in the ravine forest at W1 and three individuals of this species were captured at FC. The female from FC carried one embryo of 17 mm crown-rump length. Field notes and photographs document the somewhat yellowish fur of the W1 individual. Our three voucher specimens grouped with a specimen from Mount Nimba ( DM 13220/ JX 508839 ) labelled Pipistrellus sp. 1 in Monadjem et al. (2013 b). We tentatively assign them to Pipistrellus cf. grandidieri , similar to a specimen from Fetto (near Foye, Karanka River) in the Fouta Djallon Region of Guinea (Weber and Fahr, 2007 b) and specimens from Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Cameroon (Monadjem and Fahr, 2007; Weber and Fahr, 2007 b). A first country record from Atewa, Ghana, was also referred to as Neoromicia cf. grandidieri by Weber and Fahr (2007 a), but our genetic results ( Fig. 3 ) do not support this generic allocation. Our measurements agree well with those of the holotype Vesperugo (Vesperus) grandidieri Dobson, 1876 ( Thorn et al., 2007) and they are much smaller than measurements of the newly described species Neoromicia roseveari ( Monadjem et al., 2013 b) . Given that the holotype of P. grandidieri is from Zanzibar ( Thorn et al., 2007), this West African form might “possibly represent an undescribed species” (Monadjem and Fahr, 2007: 105). However, x -ray photographs of the baculum of ZFMK 2008.0302 ( Fig. 9 ) showed notable similarity with the drawing of the baculum of P. grandidieri grandidieri from Bamba Mluni, Tanzania ( SMF 83513 ) in Thorn et al. (2007: Fig 2 ).

Conservation status

The conservation status of this species has not yet been evaluated by the IUCN (2015).

Figures

FIG. 3. Bayesian consensus topology based on the cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) gene. Tadarida brasiliensis and T. teniotis were designated as outgroup taxa. See Table 3 for complete list of localities and museum and GenBank numbers. Values above branches are Bayesian posterior probabilities

FIG. 9. Above: baculum of Pipistrellus cf. grandidieri from Guinea (ZFMK 2008.0302; drawn from digital x-ray view); below: baculum of P. grandidieri from Tanzania (re-drawn from Thorn et al., 2007: Fig. 2). Scale bar = 1 mm

FIG. 2. Species accumulation curves for all 10 sites surveyed at Simandou (2002 RAP and 2008 baseline) generated with EstimateS 8.2.0. Also shown are the Chao1 (dashed line = 42.15) and Chao 2 (dotted line = 45.03), conservative estimates of the total number of species to be expected at Simandou