African bats in the collection of the National Museum, Prague (Chiroptera). III. Bats from Kenya in the collections of the Natural History Museum, Vienna, and National Museum, Prague

Pages	31–132
DOI	10.37520/lynx.2024.003
Keywords	Museum collection, catalogue, bats, distribution, taxonomy, East Africa, Afrotropics
Citation	BENDA, Petr, SPITZENBERGER, Friederike, UVIZL, Marek, VALLO, Peter a ČERVENÝ, Jaroslav. African bats in the collection of the National Museum, Prague (Chiroptera). III. Bats from Kenya in the collections of the Natural History Museum, Vienna, and National Museum, Prague. Lynx, new series. Prague: National Museum, 2024, 55(1), 31–132. DOI: https://doi.org/10.37520/lynx.2024.003. ISSN 0024-7774 (print), 1804-6460 (online). Also available from: https://www.nm.cz/en/periodicals/lynx-new-series/55-1/african-bats-in-the-collection-of-the-national-museum-prague-chiroptera-iii-bats-from-kenya-in-the-collections-of-the-natural-history-museum-vienna-and-national-museum-prague

Lynx, new series | 2024/55/1

A list of 711 specimens of bats belonging to 55 species of 11 families originating from Kenya, housed in the collections of the Natural History Museum, Vienna, Austria (494 specimens / 39 species / 9 families), and the National Museum, Prague, Czech Republic (217 / 34 / 9), is presented in a systematic review. The species lists are complemented by comments on distribution, morphometric data, and in some species, also on the phylogenetic affinities. The specimens originate from 64 localities that cover almost completely the territory of Kenya (33 NMW localities, 35 NMP localities) and represent 188 new records (species vs. locality). The NMP collection contains one species new for the Kenyan fauna confirmed by the molecular genetic approach, Neoromicia capensis, and the bat fauna of Kenya now comprises 110 species in total. In Cardioderma cor, Coleura afra, Platymops setiger, Vansonia rueppellii, Neoromicia zuluensis, Pseudoromicia nyanza, Afropipistrellus grandidieri, Scotophilus nux, and Miniopterus mossambicus, the collection specimens represent significant distribution records, making their occurrence ranges in Kenya more precise. A discrepancy between the morphotype and genotype was observed in the genus Epomophorus; three species of this genus were identified based on their morphological traits, while their mtDNA sequences only partly agreed with this identification, and showed presence of the genome of E. gambianus in Kenya, where it was not identified by the morphological approach. These results suggest broad sharing of the mitochondrial genome among fruit bat species. The morphometric comparisons of Rhinolophus acrotis from Kenya revealed an extraordinarily small-sized morphotype of its Mount Elgon populations. However, this morphotype seems to represent just a local montane ecomorph without taxonomic relevance. Syntopic occurrence of deeply separated mitochondrial lineages of Coleura afra (genetic distances 3.4–3.8%) suggests rather a complex phylogenetic history of the species than a taxonomic relevance of this lineage separation. The sequence obtained from the Kenyan Taphozous perforatus did not differ substantially from the haplotypes of this species available from other populations from Africa and the Middle East, all samples created a single lineage. This result shows the formerly suggested separate taxonomic position of T. perforatus populations from eastern Africa to be unjustified, and thus, we suggest the name haedinus Thomas to be considered a junior synonym of perforatus Geoffroy. The sequences of Taphozous hildegardeae, evaluated for the first time, represented a single lineage that formed a separated branch within the genus Taphozous, in a sister position to the lineage comprising the Oriental T. melanopogon. The taxonomic assessment of the populations of the Scotophilus dinganii morphotype of eastern Africa, assigned to two separate species, S. andrewreborii and S. ejetai, did not corroborate such division. We suggest the prior name Scotophilus colias to be used for these populations and the names andrewreborii Brooks et Bickham and ejetai Brooks et Bickham to be considered junior synonyms of colias Thomas. The revision of the type locality of Miniopterus minor Peters, 1867 indicates that it lies on Zanzibar Island instead of the Zanzibar Coast of mainland Tanzania, as it was mentioned previously.

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