Micronycteris microtis Miller, 1898

Cláudio, Vinícius C., Barbosa, Gedimar P., Rocha, Vlamir J. & Rassy, Ricardo Moratelli Fabrício B., 2020, The bat fauna (Mammalia: Chiroptera) of Carlos Botelho State Park, Atlantic Forest of Southeastern Brazil, including new distribution records for the state of São Paulo, Zoologia (e 36514) 37, pp. 1-32 : 6

Micronycteris microtis Miller, 1898

Fig. 5

Taxonomy. Eight species of Micronycteris Gray, 1866 , occur in Brazil ( Nogueira et al. 2014). They are divided in two groups: the “pale venter”species, which includes M. brosseti Simmons & Voss, 1998 , M. homezorum Pirlot, 1967 , M. minuta (Gervais, 1856) , M. sanborni Simmons, 1966 , and M. schmidtorum ; and the “dark venter” species, including M. hirsuta (W. Peters, 1869) , M. megalotis Gray, 1842 , and M. microtis Miller, 1898 . These groups can also be separated by the interauricular band height – high in most species of the “pale venter” group, and low in the “dark venter” group ( Simmons et al. 2002). Specimens from PECB with ventral fur light brown (dark venter), similar to the dorsum in coloration, and low interauricular band, were identified as M. microtis (ZSP 011, 028; see Table 3 for measurements). The forearm length in this species is shorter than 35 mm, differing from M. hirsuta (forearm larger than 41 mm – Simmons et al. 2002, Williams and Genoways 2008, Díaz et al. 2016). Micronycteris microtis is distinguished from M. megalotis by the length of the ears (<21 mm in M. microtis , and> 18.5 mm in M. megalotis ); the length of the fur on lower third of marginal surface of pinna (<3.9 mm in M. microtis , and> 4.1 mm in M. megalotis ); and the length of dorsal fur over the upper back (<11.3 mm in M. microtis , and> 9.1 mm in M. megalotis – Simmons and Voss 1998, Williams and Genoways 2008, Moras et al. 2015). Specimens from PECB have brownish pelage, with the dorsal fur bicolored, and a light brown basal band and mid brown distal band; ventral fur coloration is weakly bicolored, similar to the dorsal pelage. The measurements of specimens from PECB were all within the range of M. microtis : length of ears averaging 21.5 mm; length of the fur on pinna 3 mm; length of dorsal fur averaging 11 mm; and low interauricular band, with a shallow notch.

Distribution. In Brazil the species is recorded in Amazon, Cerrado and Atlantic Forest biomes, in the states of Amazonas, Pará, Amapá, Rondônia, Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais, São Paulo and Mato Grosso ( Tavares et al. 2008, Reis et al. 2017). In São Paulo, the species is known only from four localities ( Garbino 2016).

Field observations. We captured one adult male and one adult female of M. microtis , which were both taken in ground-level mist-nets in sampling sites M3 and M16 (Appendix 1). Captures occurred in October and February.