Whiskered bat

Whiskered Bat
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Chiroptera
Family: Vespertilionidae
Genus: Myotis
Species: M. mystacinus
Binomial name
Myotis mystacinus
(Kuhl, 1817)

The whiskered bat (Myotis mystacinus) and related species, are small European bats with long fur. Although uncommon, M. mystacinus is often found around human habitation and around water; it is similar to Brandt's bat Myotis brandtii, from which it was distinguished as a separate species only in 1970.

Overview

The analysis of morphological, behavioural and especially of genetic characters have since identified further cryptic species of whiskered bats in the genus Myotis, including Myotis alcathoe (described in 2001 from Europe). Myotis aurascens and Myotis ikonnikovi are other similar species. Myotis hajastanicus was also included in M. mystacinus until recently, but it was differentiated on the base of morphologic comparison.[2]

Echolocation

The frequencies used by M. mystacinus for echolocation lie between 34–102 kHz, have most energy at 53 kHz and have an average duration of 3.0 ms.[3][4]

References

  1. ↑ Chiroptera Specialist Group (1996). Myotis mystacinus. 2006. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. www.iucnredlist.org. Retrieved on 12 May 2006.
  2. ↑ Tsytsulina, K., Benda, P., Aulagnier, S. & Hutson, A.M. 2008. Myotis hajastanicus. In: IUCN 2012. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2012.2. <www.iucnredlist.org>. Retrieved on 19 October 2012.
  3. ↑ Parsons, S. and Jones, G. (2000) 'Acoustic identification of twelve species of echolocating bat by discriminant function analysis and artificial neural networks.' J Exp Biol., 203: 2641-2656.
  4. ↑ Obrist, M.K., Boesch, R. and Flückiger, P.F. (2004) 'Variability in echolocation call design of 26 Swiss bat species: Consequences, limits and options for automated field identification with a synergic pattern recognition approach.' Mammalia., 68 (4): 307-32.

External links


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