Catalogue of primary types of Neotropical Myotis (Chiroptera, Vespertilionidae)

Abstract

Myotis comprises a diverse group of vespertilionid bats with worldwide distribution. Neotropical Myotis have an accentuated phenotypic conservatism, which makes species delimitation and identification difficult, hindering our understanding of the diversity, distribution, and phylogenetic relationships of taxa. To encourage new systematic reviews of the genus, a catalogue of the primary types and names is presented, current and in synonymy, for Neotropical Myotis. Currently 33 valid species (and three subspecies) are recognized, and their primary types are deposited in 12 scientific collections in the USA (30 types), Brazil (two types), England (two types), and France (one type). The names of 29 Neotropical Myotis species currently in synonymy were found. However, it is possible that some synonyms represent independent evolutionary lineages, considering recent results provided by taxonomic revisions.

Argentinean Myotis (Chiroptera, Vespertilionidae), including the description of a new species from the Yungas

“…Our revision of museum specimens indicates the occurrence of another five Myotis species for the Yungas Forest (M. albescens, M. dinellii, M. keaysi, M. lavali, and M. riparius). Historical records of M. nigricans for this ecoregion (i.e., Ojeda and Mares 1989;Barquez and Díaz 2001) need to be revised, considering that recent taxonomic revisions have indicated that this species corresponds to a cryptic complex (Moratelli et al 2011a;Novaes et al 2022). Although the Argentine Yungas have received an extensive sampling effort for the bat assemblage during the past 50 years (Barquez and Díaz 2001;Gamboa-Alurralde et al 2017), the discovery of M. barquezi reveals the need for continued field sampling, associated with careful taxonomic investigations.…”