Laephotis botswanae Setzer 1971

Monadjem, Ara, Schoeman, M. Corrie, Reside, April, P Io, Dorothea V., Stoffberg, Samantha, Bayliss, Julian, (Woody) Cotterill, F. P. D., Curran, Michael, Kopp, Mirjam & Taylor, Peter J., 2010, A recent inventory of the bats of Mozambique with documentation of seven new species for the country, Acta Chiropterologica 12 (2), pp. 371-391 : 383

Laephotis botswanae Setzer 1971

A single adult male specimen of L. botswanae was recorded from the lower slopes (ca. 550 m) of Mount Mabu (MNHG 1971.009). Identification was based on a principal component analysis of cranial measurements with the dataset from Kearney and Seamark (2005). The Mount Mabu specimen fell clearly within specimens attributed by Kearney and Seamark (2005) to L. botswanae (data not shown). Therefore this specimen vouches for a new distribution record for Mozambique, not having previously been recorded from the country ( Van Cakenberghe and Seamark, 2008; Monadjem et al., 2010). The paucity of museum records for L. botswanae suggests that this species is rare throughout its range across Southern Africa ( Taylor, 2000; Kearney and Seamark, 2005). However, the species has been commonly recorded throughout southern Malawi ( Happold et al., 1987; Happold and Happold, 1989, 1997), including numerous records from lowland forest fragments around the base of Mount Mulanje, only ca. 60 km away from Mount Mabu (M. Curran and M. Kopp, unpublished data). Hence, the discovery of L. botswanae in Mozambique close to the Malawi border was not surprising.

Field measurements: FA (adult male) 35.2 (1), BM (adult male) 6 (1).