University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas
PRINTED BY
JEAN M. NEIBARGER, STATE PRINTER
TOPEKA, KANSAS
1961
North American Yellow Bats, "Dasypterus,"
And a List of the Named Kinds
Of the Genus Lasiurus Gray
BY
E. RAYMOND HALL AND J. KNOX JONES, JR.
INTRODUCTION
Yellow bats occur only in the New World and by most recent authors have been referred to the genus Dasypterus Peters. The red bats and the hoary bat, all belonging to the genus Lasiurus Gray, also occur only in the New World except that the hoary bat has an endemic subspecies in the Hawaiian Islands.
The kind of yellow bat first to be given a distinctive name was the smaller of the two species that occur in North America. It was named Nycticejus ega in 1856 (p. 73) by Gervais on the basis of material from the state of Amazonas, Brazil, South America, but was early recognized as occurring also in North America (in the sense that México and Central America, including Panamá, are parts of North America). More than 40 years elapsed before subspecific names were proposed for the North American populations; Thomas named Dasypterus ega xanthinus in 1897 (p. 544) from Baja California, and Dasypterus ega panamensis in 1901 (p. 246) from Panamá.
The larger of the two North American species was named Lasiurus intermedius in 1862 (p. 246) by H. Allen on the basis of material from extreme northeastern México. Another alleged species, Dasypterus floridanus, was named in 1902 (p. 392) by Miller from Florida, but as set forth below it is only a subspecies of L. intermedius, a species that is seemingly limited to parts of the North American mainland and Cuba.