Mouse-eared bat

For the species sometimes known as the mouse-eared bat, see the greater mouse-eared bat.

Mouse-eared bats
Whiskered bat (Myotis mystacinus)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Chiroptera
Family:	Vespertilionidae
Subfamily:	Myotinae Tate, 1942
Genus:	Myotis Kaup, 1829
Type species
Vespertilio myotis Borkhausen, 1797
Species
See text.

Skeleton of Myotis lucifugus found in Wooster, Ohio, USA.

Skeleton (frontal view) of Myotis lucifugus found in Wooster, Ohio, USA.

The mouse-eared bats (Myotis) are a diverse and widespread genus of bats within the family Vespertilionidae.

Relationships

Myotis has historically been included in the subfamily Vespertilioninae, 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.^[1] However, molecular data indicate that Cistugo is distantly related to all other Vespertilionidae, so that it was reclassified into its own family Cistugidae,^[2] and that Lasionycteris belongs in Vespertilioninae.^[3] Thus, Myotis is the only remaining genus within Myotinae.^[3]

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

Myotis Myotis latirostris Most Old World species Most Nearctic species Myotis brandtii Neotropical and some Nearctic species

Relationships among Myotis species according to molecular data[4]

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 convergently similar species.^[5] Instead, Myotis species largely fall in two main clades, one containing Old World and the other New World species.^[4] However, the Asian species Myotis latirostris falls outside the clade formed by these main groups, and may represent a separate genus,^[6] and the Eurasian Myotis brandtii is related to New World species.^[7]

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,^[8] are indicated in footnotes.

• Myotis adversus (Horsfield, 1824)
• Myotis aelleni Baud, 1979
• Myotis albescens (E. Geoffroy, 1806)
• Myotis alcathoe 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 aurascens Kuzyakin, 1935^{[footnote 1]}
• 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^{[footnote 2]}
• Myotis diminutus Moratelli & Wilson, 2011
• Myotis dominicensis Miller, 1902
• Myotis elegans Hall, 1962
• Myotis emarginatus (E. Geoffroy, 1806)
• Myotis escalerai Cabrera, 1904^{[footnote 3]}
• Myotis evotis (H. Allen, 1864)
• Myotis fimbriatus (Peters, 1871)
• Myotis findleyi Bogan, 1978
• Myotis flavus Shamel, 1944^{[footnote 4]}
• 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^{[footnote 5]}
• 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 petax Hollister, 1912^{[footnote 6]}
• Myotis phanluongi Borisenko, Kruskop and Ivanova, 2008^{[footnote 7]}
• 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 taiwanensis Ärnbäck-Christie-Linde, 1908^{[footnote 8]}
• Myotis thysanodes Miller, 1897
• Myotis tricolor (Temminck, 1832)
• Myotis velifer (J.A. Allen, 1890)
• Myotis vivesi Menegaux, 1901
• Myotis volans (H. Allen, 1866)
• Myotis welwitschii (Gray, 1866)
• Myotis yanbarensis Maeda and Matsumara, 1998
• Myotis yesoensis Yoshiyuki, 1984
• Myotis yumanensis (H. Allen, 1864)

Notes

1. ^ Split from M. mystacinus (Mayer et al., 2007).
2. ^ A new species (Happold, 2005).
3. ^ Split from M. nattereri (Ibáñez et al., 2006).
4. ^ Split from M. formosus (Jiang et al., 2010).
5. ^ Split from M. muricola (Stadelmann et al., 2007).
6. ^ Split from M. daubentonii (Matveev et al., 2005). Includes M. abei (Tsytsulina, 2004, as daubentonii).
7. ^ A new species (Borisenko et al., 2008).
8. ^ Split from M. adversus (Han et al., 2010).

References

1. ^ Simmons, 2005, p. 499
2. ^ Lack et al., 2010
3. ^ ^{a b} Roehrs et al., 2010
4. ^ ^{a b} Stadelmann et al., 2007, fig. 2; Lack et al., 2010, figs. 1, 2
5. ^ Simmons, 2005, p. 500
6. ^ Lack et al., 2010, p. 984
7. ^ Stadelmann et al., 2007, fig. 2
8. ^ Simmons, 2005, pp. 500–518

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.