Hypsugo musciculus Simmons (2005)

Torrent, Laura, Juste, Javier, Garin, Inazio, Aihartza, Joxerra, Dalton, Desiré L., Mamba, Mnqobi, Tanshi, Iroro, Powell, Luke L., Padidar, Sara, Mudarra, Juan Luis Garcia, Richards, Leigh & Monadjem, Ara, 2025, Taxonomic revision of African pipistrelle-like bats with a new species from the West Congolean rainforest, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 204 (2) : -

Hypsugo musciculus Simmons (2005)

Material examined

EBD 15554 M, male, Mainland Equatorial Guinea, collected by Javier Juste on 8 May 1987 ; EBD 20568 M, male, Mainland Equatorial Guinea, collected by Javier Juste on 16 May 1990 .

Description and remarks

Tis is a small bat with a total length between 64.0 and 69.0 mm, a forearm between 25.5 and 26.1 mm, and a body mass of c. 3.4 to 4.0 g (Supporting Information, Table S4). Te pelage is dark brown dorsally and ventrally and the hair is unicoloured. Te skull is comparatively small and the braincase is high with a mean GSKL of 11.53 mm and GSH of 5.09 mm (Supporting Information, Table S5). I 2 is bicuspid and I 3 is smaller; the anterior upper premolar is minute and displaced lingually; lower molars are myotodont.It presents the smallest dental measurements among all Afopipistrellus examined with a C–M 3 mean value of 3.81 mm, C–C 3.45 mm, M 3 –M 3 4.90 mm, and c–m 3 4.00 mm (Supporting Information, Table S6). Te baculum of Af. musciculus is long and slender, with a pointed tip and two conspicuous and thin lobes at the base (Supporting Information, Fig. S2, Table S7). Afopipistrellus musciculus r anges from West Sierra Leone to West DRC, with records from Ghana, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon (Supporting Information, Fig. S4D). It is mainly known from the lowland rainforest in Central Africa but West Africa records are from savanna habitats ( Monadjem et al. 2024). A post-lactating female was captured in February in Mainland Equatorial Guinea.