Plecotus alpinus Kiefer and Veith 2001

Wilson, Don E. & Reeder, DeeAnn, 2005, Order Chiroptera - Family Vespertilionidae, Mammal Species of the World: a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3 rd Edition), Volume 1, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 451-529 : 482

Plecotus alpinus Kiefer and Veith 2001

Plecotus alpinus Kiefer and Veith 2001 , Myotis , 39: 8.

Type Locality: France, Haute-Alpes, Ristolas, 44°46'N, 06°57'E, 1600 m.

Vernacular Names: Alpine Long-eared Bat.

Synonyms: Plecotus microdontus Spitzenberger 2002 .

Distribution: France, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Austria, Croatia, Greece.

Conservation: IUCN 2003 – Not evaluated (new species).

Discussion: Morphologically similar to auritus and austriacus and probably confused with these taxa in some previous studies. See Kock (2002) for discussion of priority of the name alpinus over microdontus for this species. For comparisons with other European Plecotus species, see Mucedda et al. (2002) and Spitzenberger et al. (2002). Also see Kiefer et al. (2002). Garin et al. (2003) suggested that macrobullaris may be a senior synonym of alpinus (rather than a subspecies of austriacus ), but the supporting data have not yet been published.