Van Gelder's Bat is a species of vesper bat

Vesper bat

Vesper bats , also known as Evening bats or Common bats, are the largest and best-known family of bats. They belong to the suborder Microchiroptera . There are over three hundred species distributed all over the world, on every continent except Antarctica...

 in the Vespertilionidae family.
It is found in Belize

Belize

Belize is a constitutional monarchy and the northernmost country in Central America. Belize has a diverse society, comprising many cultures and languages. Even though Kriol and Spanish are spoken among the population, Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the official...

, Costa Rica

Costa Rica

Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....

, Honduras

Honduras

Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...

, and Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

. It is monotypic within its genus

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...

. It is part of the tribe Antrozoini

Antrozoini

Antrozoini is a tribe of bats in the subfamily Vespertilioninae of the family Vespertilionidae. It includes at least the pallid bat , Van Gelder's bat , and the fossil Anzanycteris; some classifications also include the genera Rhogeessa and Baeodon.-Taxonomy:The pallid bat was first described in...

 within the subfamily Vespertilioninae

Vespertilioninae

Vespertilioninae is a subfamily of Vesper Bats from the family Vespertilionidae.-Classification:Subfamily Vespertilioninae*Tribe Eptesicini**Genus Arielulus***Collared Pipistrelle, Arielulus aureocollaris...

 and is related to the Pallid Bat

Pallid bat

The Pallid Bat is a species of bat that ranges from western Canada to central Mexico. It is the sole species of its genus and is closely related to Van Gelder's Bat , which is sometimes included in Antrozous...

 (Antrozous pallidus).

The bat was discovered by Richard Van Gelder

Richard Van Gelder

Richard George Van Gelder was a prominent mammalogist who served as the Curator of Mammalogy for the American Museum of Natural History in New York for more than twenty-five years...

, then curator of Mammalogy

Mammalogy

In zoology, mammalogy is the study of mammals – a class of vertebrates with characteristics such as homeothermic metabolism, fur, four-chambered hearts, and complex nervous systems...

at the American Museum of Natural History. He dubbed the bat "dubiaquercus" in honor of Oakes Plimpton, who doubted the newly-discovered bat was a different species (Quercus is Latin for "oak").

Source

• Miller, B. & Medina, A. 2008. Bauerus dubiaquercus. 2008 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Downloaded on 1 March 2009.