Mouse-eared bat
Encyclopedia
The mouse-eared bats (Myotis) are a diverse and widespread genus
of bat
s within the family Vespertilionidae.
, but was classified in its own subfamily, Myotinae, by Nancy Simmons in 1998. In her 2005 classification in Mammal Species of the World
, Simmons listed the genera Cistugo
and Lasionycteris in Myotinae in addition to Myotis itself. However, molecular data indicate that Cistugo is distantly related to all other Vespertilionidae, so that it was reclassified into its own family Cistugidae, and that Lasionycteris belongs in Vespertilioninae. Thus, Myotis is the only remaining genus within Myotinae.
similar species. Instead, Myotis species largely fall in two main clade
s, one containing Old World and the other New World species. However, the Asian species Myotis latirostris falls outside the clade formed by these main groups, and may represent a separate genus, and the Eurasian Myotis brandtii is related to New World species.
Myotis is a highly species-rich genus, and the classification of many species remains unsettled. In the below list, all differences in taxonomy from the 2005 third edition of Mammal Species of the World
, are indicated in footnotes.
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...
of bat
Bat
Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera "hand" and pteron "wing") whose forelimbs form webbed wings, making them the only mammals naturally capable of true and sustained flight. By contrast, other mammals said to fly, such as flying squirrels, gliding possums, and colugos, glide rather than fly,...
s within the family Vespertilionidae.
Relationships
Myotis has historically been included in the subfamily VespertilioninaeVespertilioninae
Vespertilioninae is a subfamily of Vesper Bats from the family Vespertilionidae.-Classification:Subfamily Vespertilioninae*Tribe Eptesicini**Genus Arielulus***Collared Pipistrelle, Arielulus aureocollaris...
, but was classified in its own subfamily, Myotinae, by Nancy Simmons in 1998. In her 2005 classification in Mammal Species of the World
Mammal Species of the World
Mammal Species of the World, now in its 3rd edition, is a standard reference work in zoology giving descriptions and bibliographic data for the known species of mammals.An updated Third Edition of Mammal Species of the World was published late in 2005:...
, Simmons listed the genera Cistugo
Cistugo
Cistugo is a genus of bats from southern Africa. The two species have historically been included in the genus Myotis , but molecular studies show that the genus is distinct from all other Vespertilionidae, and in fact distinctive enough to be placed in its own family, Cistugidae.The two species...
and Lasionycteris in Myotinae in addition to Myotis itself. However, molecular data indicate that Cistugo is distantly related to all other Vespertilionidae, so that it was reclassified into its own family Cistugidae, and that Lasionycteris belongs in Vespertilioninae. Thus, Myotis is the only remaining genus within Myotinae.
Characteristics
Ears are normally longer than they are wide, with a long and lance-shaped tragus. The species within this genus vary in size from very large to very small, with a single pair of mammary glands.Species
Traditionally, Myotis has been divided into three large subgenera—Leuconoe, Myotis, and Selysius. However, molecular data indicate that these subgenera are not natural groups, but instead unnatural assemblages of convergentlyConvergent evolution
Convergent evolution describes the acquisition of the same biological trait in unrelated lineages.The wing is a classic example of convergent evolution in action. Although their last common ancestor did not have wings, both birds and bats do, and are capable of powered flight. The wings are...
similar species. Instead, Myotis species largely fall in two main clade
Clade
A clade is a group consisting of a species and all its descendants. In the terms of biological systematics, a clade is a single "branch" on the "tree of life". The idea that such a "natural group" of organisms should be grouped together and given a taxonomic name is central to biological...
s, one containing Old World and the other New World species. However, the Asian species Myotis latirostris falls outside the clade formed by these main groups, and may represent a separate genus, and the Eurasian Myotis brandtii is related to New World species.
Myotis is a highly species-rich genus, and the classification of many species remains unsettled. In the below list, all differences in taxonomy from the 2005 third edition of Mammal Species of the World
Mammal Species of the World
Mammal Species of the World, now in its 3rd edition, is a standard reference work in zoology giving descriptions and bibliographic data for the known species of mammals.An updated Third Edition of Mammal Species of the World was published late in 2005:...
, are indicated in footnotes.
- Myotis adversus (Horsfield, 1824)
- Myotis aelleni Baud, 1979
- Myotis albescens (E. Geoffroy, 1806)
- Myotis alcathoeMyotis alcathoeMyotis alcathoe is a European bat in the genus Myotis. Known only from Greece and Hungary when it was first described in 2001, its known distribution has since expanded to Spain, England, Sweden, and Azerbaijan, among other countries. It is similar to the whiskered bat and other species and is...
von Helversen and Heller, 2001 - Myotis altarium Thomas, 1911
- Myotis anjouanensis Dorst, 1960
- Myotis annamiticus Kruskop and Tsytsulina, 2001
- Myotis annectans (Dobson, 1871)
- Myotis atacamensis (Lataste, 1892)
- Myotis ater (Peters, 1866)
- Myotis aurascensMyotis aurascensMyotis aurascens, known commonly as the Steppe Whiskered Bat, is a species of mouse-eared bat. It was originally assigned to Myotis mystacinus....
Kuzyakin, 1935 - Myotis auriculus Baker and Stains, 1955
- Myotis australis (Dobson, 1878)
- Myotis austroriparius (Rhoads, 1897)
- Myotis bechsteinii (Kuhl, 1817)
- Myotis blythii (Tomes, 1857)
- Myotis bocagii (Peters, 1870)
- Myotis bombinus Thomas, 1906
- Myotis brandtii (Eversmann, 1845)
- Myotis bucharensis Kuzyakin, 1950
- Myotis californicus (Audubon and Bachman, 1842)
- Myotis capaccinii (Bonaparte, 1837)
- Myotis chiloensis (Waterhouse, 1840)
- Myotis chinensis (Tomes, 1857)
- Myotis ciliolabrum Merriam, 1886
- Myotis cobanensis Goodwin, 1955
- Myotis csorbai Topál, 1997
- Myotis dasycneme (Boie, 1825)
- Myotis daubentonii (Kuhl, 1817)
- Myotis davidii Peters, 1869
- Myotis dieteri Happold, 2005
- Myotis diminutus Moratelli & Wilson, 2011
- Myotis dominicensis Miller, 1902
- Myotis elegans Hall, 1962
- Myotis emarginatus (E. Geoffroy, 1806)
- Myotis escaleraiMyotis escaleraiMyotis escalerai is a European bat in the genus Myotis, found in Spain , Portugal, and far southern France. Although the species was first named in 1904, it was included in Natterer's bat until molecular studies, first published in 2006, proved that the two are distinct...
Cabrera, 1904 - Myotis evotis (H. Allen, 1864)
- Myotis fimbriatusMyotis fimbriatusMyotis fimbriatus is a species of vesper bat in the Vespertilionidae family.It is found only in China.-Source:* Chiroptera Specialist Group 2000. . Downloaded on 19 July 2007....
(Peters, 1871) - Myotis findleyi Bogan, 1978
- Myotis flavusMyotis flavusMyotis flavus is a species of mouse-eared bat. It was previously assigned to Myotis formosus....
Shamel, 1944 - Myotis formosus (Hodgson, 1835)
- Myotis fortidens Miller and Allen, 1928
- Myotis frater G.M. Allen, 1923
- Myotis gomantongensis Francis and Hill, 1998
- Myotis goudoti (A. Smith, 1834)
- Myotis grisescens A.H. Howell, 1909
- Myotis hajastanicus Argyropulo, 1939
- Myotis hasseltii (Temminck, 1840)
- Myotis hermani Thomas, 1923
- Myotis horsfieldii (Temminck, 1840)
- Myotis hosonoi Imaizumi, 1954
- Myotis ikonnikovi Ognev, 1912
- Myotis insularum (Dobson, 1878)
- Myotis keaysi J.A. Allen, 1914
- Myotis keenii (Merriam, 1895)
- Myotis laniger Peters, 1871
- Myotis latirostris Kishida, 1932
- Myotis leibii (Audubon and Bachman, 1842)
- Myotis levis (I. Geoffroy, 1824)
- Myotis longipes (Dobson, 1873)
- Myotis lucifugus (Le Conte, 1831)
- Myotis macrodactylus (Temminck, 1840)
- Myotis macropus (Gould, 1854)
- Myotis macrotarsus (Waterhouse, 1845)
- Myotis martiniquensis LaVal, 1973
- Myotis melanorhinus Merriam, 1890
- Myotis moluccarum (Thomas, 1915)
- Myotis montivagus (Dobson, 1874)
- Myotis morrisi Hill, 1971
- Myotis muricola (Gray, 1846)
- Myotis myotis (Borkhausen, 1797)
- Myotis mystacinus (Kuhl, 1817)
- Myotis nattereri (Kuhl, 1817)
- Myotis nesopolus Miller, 1900
- Myotis nigricans (Schinz, 1821)
- Myotis nipalensis Dobson, 1871
- Myotis occultus Hollister, 1909
- Myotis oreias (Temminck, 1840)
- Myotis oxygnathus Monticelli, 1885
- Myotis oxyotus (Peters, 1867)
- Myotis ozensis Imaizumi, 1954
- Myotis peninsularis Miller, 1898
- Myotis pequinius Thomas, 1908
- Myotis petaxMyotis petaxMyotis petax is a species of mouse-eared bat. It was for a long time considered to be a subspecies of Myotis daubentonii....
Hollister, 1912 - Myotis phanluongiMyotis phanluongiMyotis phanluongi is a species of mouse-eared bat. It was described by Borisenko et al. in 2008. It is known from Vietnam....
Borisenko, Kruskop and Ivanova, 2008 - Myotis planiceps Baker, 1955
- Myotis pruinosus Yoshiyuki, 1971
- Myotis punicus Felten, Spitzenberger and Storch, 1977
- Myotis ricketti (Thomas, 1894)
- Myotis ridleyi Thomas, 1898
- Myotis riparius Handley, 1960
- Myotis rosseti (Oey, 1951)
- Myotis ruber (E. Geoffroy, 1806)
- Myotis schaubi Kormos, 1934
- Myotis scotti Thomas, 1927
- Myotis septentrionalis (Trouessart, 1897)
- Myotis sicarius Thomas, 1915
- Myotis siligorensis (Horsfield, 1855)
- Myotis simus Thomas, 1901
- Myotis sodalis Miller and Allen, 1928
- Myotis stalkeri Thomas, 1910
- Myotis taiwanensisMyotis taiwanensisMyotis taiwanensis is a species of mouse-eared bat. It was for a long time considered to be a subspecies of Myotis adversus....
Ärnbäck-Christie-Linde, 1908 - Myotis thysanodes Miller, 1897
- Myotis tricolor (Temminck, 1832)
- Myotis velifer (J.A. Allen, 1890)
- Myotis vivesiMyotis vivesiMyotis vivesi, the fish-eating bat or fish-eating myotis, is a species of bat that lives around the Gulf of California, and feeds on fish and crustaceans. It is the largest species of the genus Myotis in the Americas, and has exceptionally large feet, which it uses in hunting...
Menegaux, 1901 - Myotis volans (H. Allen, 1866)
- Myotis welwitschii (Gray, 1866)
- Myotis yanbarensisMyotis yanbarensisYanbaru Whiskered Bat is a species of vesper bat in the genus Myotis. It is only known from the islands of Okinawa, Amami Ōshima, and Tokunoshima in the Ryukyu Archipelago south of Japan....
Maeda and Matsumara, 1998 - Myotis yesoensis Yoshiyuki, 1984
- Myotis yumanensis (H. Allen, 1864)
Literature cited
- Borisenko, A.V., Kruskop, S.V. and Ivanova, N.V. 2008. A new mouse-eared bat (Mammalia: Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) from Vietnam. Russian Journal of Theriology 7(2):57–69.
- Han, N., Zhang, J., Reardon, T., Lin, L., Zhang, J. and Zhang, S. 2010. Revalidation of Myotis taiwanensis Ärnbäck-Christie-Linde 1908 and its molecular relationship with M. adversus (Horsfield 1824) (Vespertilionidae, Chiroptera) (subscription required). Acta Chiropterologica 12(2):449–456.*Happold, M. 2005. A new species of Myotis (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) from central Africa. Acta Chiropterologica 7(1):9–21.
- Ibáñez, C., García-Mudarra, J.L., Ruedi, M., Stadelmann, B. and Juste, J. 2006. The Iberian contribution to cryptic diversity in European bats. Acta Chiropterologica 8(2):277–297.
- Jiang, T., Sun, K., Chou, C., Zhang, Z. and Feng, J. 2010. First record of Myotis flavus (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) from mainland China and a reassessment of its taxonomic status. Zootaxa 2414:41–51.
- Lack, J.B., Roehrs, Z.P., Stanley, C.E., Ruedi, M. and Van Den Bussche, R.A. 2010. Molecular phylogenetics of Myotis indicate familial-level divergence for the genus Cistugo (Chiroptera) (subscription required). Journal of Mammalogy 91(4):976–992.
- Matveev, V.A., Kruskop, S.V. and Kramerov, D.A. 2005. Revalidation of Myotis petax Hollister, 1912 and its new status in connection with M. daubentonii (Kuhl, 1817) (Vespertilionidae, Chiroptera). Acta Chiropterologica 7(1):23–37.
- Mayer, F., Dietz, C. and Kiefer, A. 2007. Molecular species identification boosts bat diversity. Frontiers in Zoology 4(1):239–255.
- Roehrs, Z.P., Lack, J.B. and Van Den Bussche, R.A. 2010. Tribal phylogenetic relationships within Vespertilioninae (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) based on mitochondrial and nuclear sequence data (subscription required). Journal of Mammalogy 91(5):1073–1092.
- Simmons, N.B. 2005. Order Chiroptera. Pp. 312–529 in Wilson, D.E. and Reeder, D.M. (eds.). Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference. 3rd ed. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2 vols., 2142 pp. ISBN 9780801882210
- Stadelmann, B., Lin, L.-K., Kunz, T.H. and Ruedi, M. 2007. Molecular phylogeny of New World Myotis (Chiroptera, Vespertilionidae) inferred from mitochondrial and nuclear DNA genes (subscription required). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 43(1):32–48.
- Tsytsulina, K. 2004. On the taxonomical status of Myotis abei Yoshikura, 1944 (Chiroptera, Vespertilionidae). Zoological Science 21:963–966.