Neoromicia somalica (Bocage, 1889)

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

Neoromicia somalica (Bocage, 1889)

New material

ZFMK 2008.0033, ♀, CMR, 18 December 2008.

One female of this tiny pipistrelloid bat was caught in the canopy net set over a stream in gallery forest at CMR. In our genetic analysis it groups with a single specimen of N. somalica from Mount Nimba ( DM 12612 — Monadjem et al., 2013 b). While our measurements agree well with those published by Monadjem et al. (2013 b) and Rosevear (1965), the coloration of our specimen is a much darker brown than the ‘palish brown’ or ‘sandy coloration’ mentioned for ‘ Eptesicus somalicus ’ in Rosevear (1965) or for ‘ E. capensis somalicus ’ in Aellen (1952) . Its ecological characterization as a savannah species agrees well with our capture in one of the drier habitats of the study area at CMR. We follow the African Chiroptera Report ( ACR 2015) and Riccucci and Lanza (2008) in using N. somalica , as opposed to N. somalicus . The type specimen of N. somalica comes from Hargheisa, Somalia ( ACR, 2015; Lanza et al., 2015) in the extremely arid Horn of Africa. As yet, no specimens of this species have been sequenced from this region, and the taxonomic affinities of the two specimens from moist tropical woodlands of Guinea and Liberia, mentioned above, in relation to those from the Horn of Africa require investigation.

Conservation status

Least Concern. Population trend is unknown ( IUCN, 2015).