Hipposideros caffer (Sundevall, 1846)

Fig. 11 E–F

Rhinolophus caffer Sundevall, 1846: 118 .

* Hipposideros caffer (Sundevall, 1846) .

* Hipposideros caffer caffer (Sundevall, 1846) .

* Hipposideros caffer tephrus Cabrera, 1906: 358 .

* Hipposideros nanus J.A. Allen, 1917: 434 .

The identification of a specimen from Nagero (southern edge of the Garamba National Park, Haut-Uélé Province; RBINS 14637) as H. caffer tephrus by Hayman et al. (1966: 44) is rather strange, as this subspecies (currently considered as a separate species) occurs in Morocco and the dry sub-Saharan belt from Mauritania and Guinea to Sudan and Yemen at about 15° N (Vallo et al. 2009; Bernard & Happold 2013b: 377). Bernard & Happold (2013b: 376) assigned the specimens from the northeastern part of the DRC to H. c. nanus and those from the western part (Kongo Central Province) to H. c. angolensis (Seabra, 1898), leaving the remainder to H. c. caffer .

On the map presented by Bernard & Happold (2013b: 377), the distribution of H. caffer only covers the area around the mouth of the Congo River and the eastern part of the DRC and the western frontiers of Rwanda and Burundi. Our data indicate that the species occurs much further to the west in the northern half of the DRC. We therefore believe the distribution is much more continuous, connecting the West African populations with those from Central and eastern Africa (see also ACR 2016: 164).