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Title: Description of a New Vespertilionine Bat from Yucatan

Author: J. A. Allen

Release date: September 3, 2008 [eBook #26512]
Most recently updated: January 4, 2021

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DESCRIPTION OF A NEW VESPERTILIONINE BAT FROM YUCATAN ***

231

[Author’s Edition, extracted from Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. IX, September 28, 1897.]

Article XIX.—DESCRIPTION OF A NEW VESPERTILIONINE BAT FROM YUCATAN.

By J.A. Allen.

In a small collection of mammals recently sent by Dr. G.F. Gaumer from Izamal, Yucatan, to this Museum for identification, is a single specimen of a species of Adelonycteris, which appears to be undescribed. It may be called

Adelonycteris gaumeri, sp. nov.

Above dark brown, with an olivaceous wash, the fur being uniform dark brown to the base tipped with a slight tinge of olivaceous, the extreme tip slightly grayish in certain lights; below much lighter, the fur being dark brown basally and broadly tipped with pale buffy gray; ears and membranes black, naked, and with no trace of a whitish border. Ears of medium size, rather thin, evenly convex on the front border, slightly hollowed on the posterior border below the rounded posteriorly directed tip; tragus long and rather narrow, pointed, equal to half the height of the ear. Face semi-nude, about as in A. fusca.

Measurements.—“Length, 95 mm.; expanse, 286; wing, 124; tail, 40”;[1] ear, 21; tragus, 11; fore arm, 39; thumb, 7; 3d digit, 79 = phal. i, 37, phal. ii, 24; phal. iii, 11; phal. iv, 7; tibia, 70; foot, 8.

Skull.—Similar in a general way to that of A. fusca, but about one-half smaller. Middle inner upper incisors considerably worn, and the ridges for muscular attachment strongly developed, indicating an old individual. Greatest length (front base of incisors to end of crest), 18; mastoid breadth, 8.3; zygomatic breadth, 10.1; interorbital breadth, 4; length of molar-premolar series, 4.2; palatal length, 5.3.

Type, No. 12753/11040, ad., Izamal, Yucatan; collected by Dr. George F. Gaumer, for whom the species is named.

In coloration Adelonycteris gaumeri resembles examples of A. fusca in immature dark pelage, but it differs from this species in the thinness of the ears, and in the greater relative length of the narrower and more tapering tragus, and in its very much232 smaller size. In size it resembles both ‘Vesperugo’ propinquus Peters and V. (Marsipolæmus) albigularis Peters, respectively from Guatemala and Mexico. The peculiar structure of the ears, to say nothing of the coloration, in V. albigularis, render comparison with this species unnecessary. V. propinquus is described as reddish above, paler and more reddish yellow below, and in this respect is widely different from A. gaumeri. It has also a longer thumb and foot than A. gaumeri.

The type and only specimen of this species has been kindly presented by Dr. Gaumer to this Museum, with other specimens of Yucatan mammals.


FOOTNOTES

[1] Collector’s measurements from the fresh specimen; the rest are from the dry skin.