Myotis mystacinus (Kuhl, 1817)

Aidek, Ahmad E., Ibrahim, Amir, Amr, Zuhair, Hutterer, Rainer, Kryštufek, Boris, Serra, Gianluca, Benda, Petr, Shkaky, Yesra, Barbanera, Filippo & Al-Sheikhly, Omar F., 2025, Checklist of Mammals of Syria, Zootaxa 5580 (1), pp. 1-130 : 72

65. Common Whiskered Myotis, Myotis mystacinus (Kuhl, 1817)

(IUCN Red List: LC)

Subspecies: Monotypic species.

Distribution: Rare; confined to the mountain habitat in southwest Syria ( Fig. 72 ).

Previous records: Only one record is available from Mount Hermon (Benda & KarataȘ 2005).

Remarks: Bats of the M. mystacinus morpho-group represent a phylogenetically complex matter. The Levantine populations were formerly assigned to M. aurascens Kuzyakin, 1935 [= M. davidii (Peters, 1869) ] based on their large body size (see Benda & KarataȘ 2005). The revision of the Middle Eastern and Caucasian populations of the morpho-group showed that these bats should belong to M. mystacinus (see Benda et al. 2016).

Figures

FIGURE 72. Records of the Common Whiskered Myotis Myotis mystacinus (Kuhl, 1817) in Syria.