26-4058
Extensions of Known Ranges
of Mexican Bats
BY
SYDNEY ANDERSON
Incidental to studies of speciation of North American mammals, made possible by assistance from the National Science Foundation and the Kansas University Endowment Association, a number of bats have been taken beyond the limits of their previously known geographic ranges. Pending the completion of more detailed faunal accounts, these notes are published so that the distributional records will be available to interested students of Mexican mammals.
Many of these bats are essentially tropical and the new records here reported, extend the known geographic ranges to the northward on either the east or the west coast of Mexico. Continued collecting, especially by the intensive application of a variety of methods including the use of mist nets, in the northern parts of the zone of tropical vegetation can be expected to yield other species of tropical bats beyond the limits of the ranges now known. Catalogue numbers cited in parentheses are those of the Museum of Natural History.
Chilonycteris psilotis Dobson.—Six specimens (36426-36431) taken 7 mi. W and ½ mi. S Santiago, at sea level, Colima, by J. R. Alcorn, on March 17, 1950, extend the known range of this species 330 miles westward from the most northwestern recorded occurrence at Alpuyeca, Morelos (Davis and Russell, 1952:234). Use of the name psilotis is explained by de la Torre (1955:697).
Chilonycteris parnellii mexicana Miller.—One specimen (54934) from 10 mi. W, 2 mi. S Piedra, 1200 ft., Tamaulipas, taken by Gerd H. Heinrich, on June 13, 1953, extends the known range of this species 76 miles east-northeast (Goodwin, 1954:4), previously the most northern recorded occurrence in northeastern Mexico. Thirty other specimens have been taken from four additional localities between El Pachón and the place 10 mi. W, 2 mi. S Piedra.