Glauconycteris beatrix Thomas, 1901

Beatrix butterfly bat

Glauconycteris beatrix Thomas, 1901: 256; Benito River, 15 miles from the mouth, Spanish Guinea (= Equatorial Guinea).

New material

HZM.1.40181, ♀, 29 July, 2012, Airport Road, Lekoumou, 2°45.724’S, 13°34.953’E . This is the first authenticated record for Congo (Appendix I). According to Happold and Happold (2013), it is ‘rarely recorded’ throughout its range in Africa.

Description

A medium-small bat with a forearm length of 40.8 mm (Table 2). The pelage is dark brown throughout but with a patch of pure white hairs at the base of each humerus. Unlike G. alboguttata, the muzzle, chin, sides of the face, ears, tragi, outer borders of the wing, forearms and digits (upper and lower surfaces) are all grey-brown not whitish. Each tragus is short with an almost straight anterior border and a rounded posterior border with a basal notch (Fig. 8B). The skull is small with a greatest length of 11.74 mm (Table 3). It is broad with a small rostrum and an inflated braincase (Fig. 9A). The first upper incisor (I 2) has a well-defined secondary cusp; the second (I 3) is unicuspid and very small (Fig. 9A). The upper premolar (P 4) is between half and two-thirds the crown area of the first molar (M 1) (Fig. 9A). The third molar (M 3) has three commissures. The first two lower incisors (I 1 and I 2) are tricuspidate (the middle cusp is not enlarged) and about equal in size; I 3 is slightly larger and with a cusplet on the cingulum, posteriorly. The first lower premolar (P 2) is two-thirds the crown area and about half the height of the second (P 4); both P 2 and P 4 have well-defined cingular cusps on the anterior, interior cingulum.

Taxonomic notes

Currently there are no recognised subspecies (or named forms) referred to this species (Simmons, 2005; Happold and Happold, 2013). Eger and

Schlitter (2001) provide useful taxonomic information about this taxon (and G. alboguttata).