taxonID	type	description	language	source
03881553FFAB876A765452B81C3A15BB.taxon	materials_examined	Material. 1 ³ ad (DDW 26), Dire Dawa, Enkuftu Cave, 09 ° 35 ʹ N, 41 ° 52 ʹ E, 1258 m a. s. l., captured 24 / 11 / 2017. One male of the Egyptian rousette was caught at the Enkuftu Cave within the Dire Dawa town. A huge colony of this bat was observed roosting during day time in this cave. This locality, together with Harar from where this bat was reported by Hayman and Hill (1971), constitutes the north-eastern limit of the known species range in sub-Saharan Africa (Bergmans 1994). The new record also represents the northernmost record of R. aegyptiacus from Ethiopia, since the known distribution of this bat in the country has been confined to the territory south of the 9 ° 20 ʹ N (in the western part of the country, the northernmost locality is the Geda Gilinde Cave at 9 ° 12 ʹ N; Stříbná et al. 2019). The region of Dire Dawa probably also constitutes the northernmost area of the species occurrence in the eastern part of Africa, i. e. nominally assigned to be inhabited by R. a. leachii (Smith, 1829), see Bergmans (1994). The only east-African finding originating from an area more to the north, Addi Sciaddi [= Addisc Addi; 15 ° 40 ʹ N, 38 ° 37 ʹ E] in Eritrea (Sordelli 1902), was doubted by Bergmans (1994), although it was accepted by Senna (1905), Largen et al. (1974) and Happold (2013 a). Without doubt, the Dire Dawa area represents an extreme and outlying distributional occurrence spot of R. aegyptiacus in tropical Africa. Dimensions of the collected specimen are as follows: weight 110 g, head and body length 140 mm, forearm length 90 mm, ear length 22 mm, largest skull length 42.67 mm, condylobasal length 40.48 mm, zygomatic width 25.97 mm, neurocranium width 17.88 mm, neurocranium height 13.46 mm, length of upper tooth-row 16.03 mm. These data fall into the middle of the ranges of R. a. leachii from eastern Africa (n = 72; Bergmans 1994), while some of them exceed the upper limits of the ranges of R. a. arabicus Anderson, 1902 from the southern part of the Middle East (n = 58; Benda et al. 2012 b). The latter subspecies was suggested to occur in eastern Ethiopia (Harar) by Hayman and Hill (1971) and Largen et al. (1974). However, our record supports the view by Bergmans (1994), who considered the presence of small-sized R. a. arabicus in eastern Ethiopia as improbable and all the populations of this bat from the eastern part of sub-Saharan Africa referred solely to large-sized R. a. leachii.	en	Benda, P., Kasso, M., Nicolas, V., Pleurdeau, D., Stoetzel, E., Workalemahu, S., Bekele, A., Denys, C. (2019): New data on bats from Dire Dawa regionı eastern Ethiopiaı with the first record of Rhinopoma microphyllum in the country. Journal of Natural History 53 (41): 2579-2590, DOI: 10.1080/00222933.2019.1705416
03881553FFAA876977EA53061DFD1693.taxon	materials_examined	Material. 1 ♀ ad (DDW 03), Dire Dawa, Fasika hotel garden, 09 ° 36 ʹ N, 41 ° 51 ʹ E, 1188 m a. s. l., 19 / 11 / 2017. – 1 ♀ ad (DDW 18), Dire Dawa, Toni Farm (Dire Dawa University), 09 ° 37 ʹ N, 41 ° 50 ʹ E, 1156 m a. s. l., 19 / 11 / 2017. Two females of the least epauletted fruit bat were caught at two sites within the Dire Dawa town. According to data by Claessen and De Vree (1991), the records from Dire Dawa area only slightly shift the known limits of the distribution range of this species to the north-east. In the surrounding areas of the eastern edge of the Chercher Mountains, E. minimus represents a regularly encountered fruit bat species; specimens were collected in the areas some 50 – 80 km south-east of Dire Dawa, at Harar, Errer Valley, and Babille (Claessen and De Vree 1991; Lavrenchenko et al. 2010); Bahadu, the type locality of E. minimus, lies only some 145 km WNW of Dire Dawa. External dimensions of the specimens collected in Dire Dawa are as follows (DDW 03 / DDW 18): weight 36 / 38 g, head and body length 95 / 109 mm, forearm length 60 / 65 mm, ear length 16 / 19 mm; skull dimensions (DDW 03): largest skull length 31.12 mm, condylobasal length 29.86 mm, zygomatic width 17.98 mm, neurocranium width 12.96 mm, neurocranium height 9.81 mm, length of upper tooth-row 10.89 mm. The species identification based on the craniodental data comparison conforms to those given by Claessen and De Vree (1991, p. 219); the result of discriminant function counted from three cranial measurements is 47.5. In E. minimus this value should be below 116, while higher values indicate E. labiatus (Temminck, 1837), which, however, is not known to occur in eastern Ethiopia or in Somalia (Claessen and De Vree 1991; Lanza et al. 2015).	en	Benda, P., Kasso, M., Nicolas, V., Pleurdeau, D., Stoetzel, E., Workalemahu, S., Bekele, A., Denys, C. (2019): New data on bats from Dire Dawa regionı eastern Ethiopiaı with the first record of Rhinopoma microphyllum in the country. Journal of Natural History 53 (41): 2579-2590, DOI: 10.1080/00222933.2019.1705416
03881553FFA987687796562E1D5D12A5.taxon	materials_examined	Material. 1 ♀ ad (DDW 22), Goda Buticha Cave, 9 km S of Hurso (23 km WSW of Dire Dawa), 09 ° 33 ʹ N, 41 ° 38 ʹ E, 1382 m a. s. l., 23 / 11 / 2017. An adult female of the greater mouse-tailed bat was found inside the Goda Buticha Cave. The surroundings of the cave are composed of dry scrubland with rocky cliffs, and a small village with some cultivations is found near the cave. The environment thus corresponds well with the known ecological requirements of this bat (see, e. g. Schlitter and Qumsiyeh 1996). This finding represents the first record of R. microphyllum in Ethiopia and also a range extension of the south-eastern limit of the known distribution of the species in Africa (Van Cakenberghe and De Vree 1994; Schlitter and Qumsiyeh 1996; Aulagnier 2013 b). This bat is known from Sudan and Djibouti, but not Somalia (Koopman 1975; Pearch et al. 2001; Lanza et al. 2015). In Sudan, it was recorded southernmost in southern Kordofan (Jebel Talao, 2 km NE of Kaduqli, 11 ° 02 ʹ N; Kock 1969) and thus, the Ethiopian locality is the southernmost extension of this species ’ range in eastern Africa. The new Ethiopian record also originates from the highest altitude locality of R. microphyllum in Africa, since in other African range countries this bat occurs rather in lowlands or in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco up to 1100 m a. s. l. (cf. Aulagnier and Destre 1985). On the other hand, the Ethiopian locality is still not the highest site of the whole range of this bat, since in the Middle East it has been recorded up to 1775 m a. s. l. (Benda et al. 2012 a). Measurements of the collected specimen are as follows: weight 20 g, head and body length 79 mm, tail length 57 mm, forearm length 69 mm, ear length 17 mm, tragus length 7 mm, largest skull length 19.90 mm, condylocanine length 17.76 mm, zygomatic width 11.72 mm, neurocranium width 8.47 mm, neurocranium height 6.87 mm, length of upper tooth-row 7.11 mm. The species identification of R. microphyllum was based on the above values showing large body size of the specimen as well as its relatively short tail, much shorter than the forearm (cf. Hill 1977; Van Cakenberghe and De Vree 1994). The comparison of the measurements of the bat from Dire Dawa with those of other African samples of R. microphyllum (Kock 1969; Koopman 1975; Hill 1977; Koch-Weser 1984; Van Cakenberghe and De Vree 1994; Pearch et al. 2001) show the medium-sized body of the Ethiopian specimen, comparable with bats from Egypt, Sudan and Morocco, rather smaller than bats from the Sahel, but much larger than a bat from the geographically closest population from Djibouti (210 km away), which was referred to the small-sized west-Arabian form R. m. asirensis Nader et Kock, 1983 by Pearch et al. (2001). Similarly, the results of molecular genetic analysis positioned the Ethiopian sample of R. microphyllum among the samples from North Africa, Middle East and India (Figure 2). Although the Iranian samples created a separate cluster (posterior probability 0.98), the node grouping all other specimens was not supported (posterior probability 0.53). In this analysis, a sample from south-western Saudi Arabia, from near Bishah, a site located 340 km from the type locality of R. m. asirensis (Al Jowa, 17 ° 00 ʹ N, 43 ° 3 ʹ E; Nader and Kock 1983), also clustered with bats from the broad area from Morocco to India. Although no type locality samples were included in this genetic comparison, the results still suggest that R. microphyllum, as a species, constitutes one morphometrically diverse but phylogenetically homogenous taxon (Schlitter and Qumsiyeh 1996; Hulva et al. 2007; Levin et al. 2008), rather than a series of more separated taxa (Hill 1977; Van Cakenberghe and De Vree 1994). Hence, the results of morphometric and molecular genetic analyses, though based on the examination of a single bat, together placed the newly discovered Ethiopian population within the species limits of R. microphyllum.	en	Benda, P., Kasso, M., Nicolas, V., Pleurdeau, D., Stoetzel, E., Workalemahu, S., Bekele, A., Denys, C. (2019): New data on bats from Dire Dawa regionı eastern Ethiopiaı with the first record of Rhinopoma microphyllum in the country. Journal of Natural History 53 (41): 2579-2590, DOI: 10.1080/00222933.2019.1705416
03881553FFA88767765E52131D9F1283.taxon	materials_examined	Material. 1 ♀ sad (DDW 23), Goda Buticha Cave, 9 km S of Hurso (23 km WSW of Dire Dawa), 09 ° 33 ʹ N, 41 ° 38 ʹ E, 1382 m a. s. l., 23 / 11 / 2017. A subadult female of the lesser mouse-tailed bat was caught inside the Goda Buticha Cave in the same place as R. microphyllum. External measurements of the collected specimen are as follows: weight 10 g, head and body length 67 mm, tail length 69 mm, forearm length 56 mm, ear length 17 mm, tragus length 6 mm; the skull is not available for examination. According to the body size (forearm length) and the relative long tail (longer than forearm), this specimen represents the lesser mouse-tailed bat, R. cystops (sensu Hulva et al. 2007). This species identification was confirmed also by molecular genetic analysis (Figure 2). Although R. cystops belongs to widespread bat species in the arid zone of the northern part of Africa (Van Cakenberghe and De Vree 1994; Aulagnier 2013 a), in Ethiopia this bat was documented only from few sites in a limited region of the upper part of the Awash valley at Metahara (Hill and Morris 1971; Largen et al. 1974; Demeter 1982; Benda et al. 2017). The new record from the Dire Dawa area significantly enlarges the known range of this bat species in Ethiopia and eastern Africa generally. It falls close close to the delimitation line of the south-eastern limits of the African species range, continuing eastward to northern Somalia (Van Cakenberghe and De Vree 1994; Lanza et al. 2015). The new east-Ethiopian record represents also the highest African altitude recorded, since the other Ethiopian findings come from sites situated around 1000 m a. s. l. (Hill and Morris 1971; Largen et al. 1974) and the altitude maximum known from the Algerian Sahara approaches 1200 m a. s. l. only (cf. Kowalski and Rzebik-Kowalska 1991). The size of the Dire Dawa specimen of R. cystops conforms to the size of the known Ethiopian bats, in which the forearm length (FA) was reported in the range of 52.9 – 56.6 mm (mean 55.0 mm, n = 13; Hill and Morris 1971) and 54.5 – 57.8 mm (mean 56.4 mm, n = 3; Benda et al. 2017), respectively. The Ethiopian samples are in size very similar to the southern Arabian samples of R. cystops (FA 50.5 – 58.9 mm, mean 54.9 mm, n = 52; Benda et al. 2017), but significantly differ from the large-sized bats from Somalia (FA 59.7 – 67.0 mm, mean 62.9 mm, n = 12; Benda et al. 2017). The results of the molecular genetic comparison (Figure 2) clustered the Dire Dawa specimen with the sequences of R. cystops from the Middle East (Yemen, Socotra, Jordan, Syria), creating a sister lineage to the sequences from North Africa (Egypt, Libya). The genetic similarities thus are in accordance with the morphometric findings (see also Benda et al. 2017). Hulva et al. (2007) referred the two lineages of R. cystops to two subspecies, African R. c. cystops and Middle Eastern R. c. arabium Thomas, 1913 and the Red Sea was regarded as a border between these lineages / subspecies. However, while the Ethiopian sample belongs to the Middle Eastern lineage by our analysis, perhaps all species ’ populations of the Horn of Africa belong rather to R. c. arabium than to the nominotypical form. An alternative explanation of this result could be a mosaic-like border between the lineages, when a certain percentage of individuals of one of the bordering population bears haplotypes of the opposite populations, similarly, as it was already found in Rousettus aegyptiacus and / or Asellia tridens (Geoffroy, 1813) in the identical geographical arrangement across the Red Sea (see Benda et al. 2012 b; Bray and Benda 2016).	en	Benda, P., Kasso, M., Nicolas, V., Pleurdeau, D., Stoetzel, E., Workalemahu, S., Bekele, A., Denys, C. (2019): New data on bats from Dire Dawa regionı eastern Ethiopiaı with the first record of Rhinopoma microphyllum in the country. Journal of Natural History 53 (41): 2579-2590, DOI: 10.1080/00222933.2019.1705416
03881553FFA78766764A523E1FCA1709.taxon	materials_examined	Material. 1 ♀ juv (DDW 04), Dire Dawa, at the Lega Hare River, 09 ° 36 ʹ N, 41 ° 53 ʹ E, 1212 m a. s. l., 18 / 11 / 2017. – 1 ³ ad (DDW 17), Dire Dawa, Toni Farm (Dire Dawa University), 09 ° 37 ʹ N, 41 ° 50 ʹ E, 1148 m a. s. l., 21 / 11 / 2017. Two specimens of the little free-tailed bat were collected in agricultural areas adjacent to Dire Dawa town. This species belongs to one of the most common bats in various savannah zones of Africa (Happold 2013 b); with the exceptions of true deserts and true forests, it is distributed widely across Ethiopia (Largen et al. 1974). C. pumilus was also repeatedly recorded in broader region of the eastern Chercher Mountains, viz. Haramaya, Babile, Errer valley, Harar (Largen et al. 1974; Demeter and Topál 1982; Lavrenchenko et al. 2010). Measurements of the specimens collected at Dire Dawa are as follows (DDW 04 / DDW 17): weight 9.0 / 10.2 g, head and body length 87 / 70 mm, tail length 27 / 36 mm, forearm length 39 / 40 mm, ear length 17 / 15 mm, largest skull length 16.25 / 17.35 mm, condylobasal length 15.18 / 16.29 mm, zygomatic width 10.18 / 10.47 mm, neurocranium width 8.05 / 8.15 mm, neurocranium height 5.41 / 6.19 mm, length of upper tooth-row 6.31 / 6.51 mm. These values conform to the measurement ranges known for the species (see, e. g. Lavrenchenko et al. 2004; Happold 2013 b).	en	Benda, P., Kasso, M., Nicolas, V., Pleurdeau, D., Stoetzel, E., Workalemahu, S., Bekele, A., Denys, C. (2019): New data on bats from Dire Dawa regionı eastern Ethiopiaı with the first record of Rhinopoma microphyllum in the country. Journal of Natural History 53 (41): 2579-2590, DOI: 10.1080/00222933.2019.1705416
03881553FFA68766779756B21CCE13D1.taxon	materials_examined	Material. 1 ♀ ad (DDW 05), Dire Dawa, at the Lega Hare River, 09 ° 36 ʹ N, 41 ° 53 ʹ E, 1212 m a. s. l., 18 / 11 / 2017. A female of the white-bellied house bat was caught in an agricultural area adjacent to Dire Dawa town. This species is rare in Ethiopia, verified records are available only from the western part of the country (Largen et al. 1974; Robbins et al. 1985). In the eastern part of the Chercher Mountains, including Dire Dawa area, only the larger and brighter species S. colias Thomas, 1904 has been reported (Robbins et al. 1985, sensu Vallo et al. 2011). However, the identification of the newly recorded Dire Dawa bat as S. leucogaster is clear from its rather small body and skull size fitting to the genetically identified samples by Vallo et al. (2019). Measurements of this specimen are as follows: weight 18 g, head and body length 83 mm, tail length 55 mm, forearm length 50 mm, ear length 16 mm, tragus length 9 mm, largest skull length 18.82 mm, condylobasal length 17.44 mm, zygomatic width 13.36 mm, neurocranium width 9.31 mm, neurocranium height 7.68 mm, length of upper tooth-row 6.52 mm. Although this new record significantly enlarges the distribution range of S. leucogaster in Ethiopia, the extent of the whole species range is not really affected; this bat is known to occur in the whole savannah belt of northern part of Africa and south-western Arabia, including most of the countries surrounding Ethiopia, like Sudan, South Sudan, Chad, Central African Republic, Kenya, Somalia or Yemen (Robbins et al. 1985; Vallo et al. 2011; Lanza et al. 2015). Considering the measurement values given (forearm length 48.6 mm, upper tooth-row length 6.7 mm) and pale colouration description, the Scotophilus specimen collected by Lavrenchenko et al. (2010) in the Babile Elephant Sanctuary, some 80 – 90 km south-east of Dire Dawa, and reported as S. cf. dinganii (Smith, 1833), could belong to S. leucogaster. Such a record there could be regarded as more possible in light of our finding from Dire Dawa. However, the detailed skull examination and / or genetic comparison is necessary to solve the identification of the concerned bat.	en	Benda, P., Kasso, M., Nicolas, V., Pleurdeau, D., Stoetzel, E., Workalemahu, S., Bekele, A., Denys, C. (2019): New data on bats from Dire Dawa regionı eastern Ethiopiaı with the first record of Rhinopoma microphyllum in the country. Journal of Natural History 53 (41): 2579-2590, DOI: 10.1080/00222933.2019.1705416
