72. Desert Long-eared Bat, Otonycteris hemprichii Peters, 1859

(IUCN Red List: LC)

Subspecies: O. h. hemprichii Peters, 1859 .

Distribution: Abundant; restricted to the crevices of rocky plains and arid areas around the Euphrates Valley, Mesopotamia, Al-Badia, and around Aleppo (Fig. 79).

Previous records: Syrian Desert (Harrison 1964),Al-Qaryatein (Harrison 1972), Qal’at er-Rahba and Aleppo (Shehab et al. 2004), es-Salihiyyeh, Ayyash, Halabiyyeh, Zalabiyyeh, Qal’at er-Rahba, Khazneh, Jeiroud, Palmyra, Al-Ghazili north of ar-Raqqa, ar-Raqqa, er-Rasafah (Benda et al. 2006), Qal’at er-Rahba, er-Rasafah, and el- Ukersheh (Shehab et al. 2007), and Palmyra (Serra et al. 2009a, b).

Remarks: According to the results of taxonomic revision by Benda & Gvoždík (2010), the Syrian O. hemprichii populations are part of the nominotypical subspecies occurring in the desert belt that stretches between West Africa and Iraq Mesopotamia.