Afronycteris, MONADJEM, PATTERSON & DEMOS, 2021

Monadjem, Ara, Demos, Terrence C., Dalton, Desire L., Webala, Paul W., Musila, Simon, Kerbis Peterhans, Julian C. & Patterson, Bruce D., 2021, A revision of pipistrelle-like bats (Mammalia: Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) in East Africa with the description of new genera and species, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 191 : -

AFRONYCTERIS MONADJEM, PATTERSON & DEMOS

GEN. NOV.

LSID: http://zoobank.org/ urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:71737F08-2938-4403-8385-5438B2E5EABE

Synonymy

Vespertilio Peters, 1852 (part, not Linnaeus, 1758).

Hypsugo Kolenati, 1860 (part, not Kolenati, 1856).

Vesperugo Dobson, 1875 (part, not Keyserling & Blasius, 1839).

Pipistrellus Miller, 1900 (part, not Kaup, 1829).

Myotis Matschie, 1907 (part, not Kaup, 1829).

Neoromicia Shortridge, 1934 (part, not Roberts, 1926).

Eptesicops Roberts, 1951 (part, not Roberts, 1926).

Complete synonymic histories for the species placed herein in Afronycteris are given in the African Chiroptera report ( AfricanBats NPC, 2019).

as Neo. tenuipinnis ). However, its distribution beyond western Kenya is not known. It seems to be associated with the high plateau of western Kenya, which extends into eastern Uganda; presumably, it also occurs there. Thorn & Kerbis Peterhans (2009) recorded ‘ Pipistrellus tenuipinnis ’ as occurring widely in Uganda. The cranial measurements of specimens from Budongo, Entebbe and Sango Bay (at elevations similar to those we report from Kenya) all fall neatly within the range of Pse. nyanza and are generally larger than those for Pse. tenuipinnis . It would be instructive to re-examine these specimens (in the collections of the BMNH and LACM) to confirm their identities and help to determine the western limits of the distribution of Pse. nyanza . However, records from the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo apparently refer to true Pse. tenuipinnis , owing to their small size, with total length ‘about 72 mm’ ( Allen et al., 1917). We speculate that, despite the limited geographical range of Pse. nyanza (even if Uganda is included), this species is currently not threatened because it survives in human-altered habitats, and therefore we recommend the IUCN conservation status of ‘Least Concern’. The type specimen echolocated at a peak frequency (start and end frequencies) of 40.4 kHz (56.4–39.3 kHz). The mean (± SD) peak frequency for 16 individuals at the type locality was 40.4 ± 0.84 kHz (55.1 ± 7.91 to 39.5 ± 0.68 kHz).

Type species: Afronycteris nana (Peters, 1852) .